GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

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100 BCE

July 12: Gaius Iulius Cæsar, who would become Dictator Perpetuus of (and, it must be pointed out, a god), was born — on what would become, famously, a number of centuries later, Henry David Thoreau’s birthday. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

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71 BCE

Death of Marcus Antonius Creticus, father of Marcus Antonius. (His mother, Julia, a 2d cousin of Julius , would remarry with Cornelius Lentulus Sura, consul in 71, who would in 63 be executed at the instigation of Marcus Tullius on account of his participation in the conspiracy of Catiline.)

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

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63 BCE

In about this year got married with his cousin Antonia (the first of several wives).

Cato the Younger was elected as of the plebs for the following year. Lucius Sergius Catilina, a , was leading a rebellion inside Rome with the purpose of making himself king. Cato assisted the consul, Marcus Tullius Cicero, in dealing with the Catiline conspiracy. Cato proposed to set an example by executing all the conspirators, over the objection of Gaius , who advocated exile for the conspirators while their comrades were still in arms, possibly for the duration of their lives. The senate voted for execution and the rebellion was utterly crushed.

When Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius died, Caesar became in charge of Roman religion. He was Papa Caesar, the Pope of Rome, and you could kiss his ring, or perhaps his foot. (The head of the Roman Catholic religion would not be referred to as Pontifex Maximus until at least four additional centuries HDT WHAT? INDEX

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had passed, which is to say, at the very earliest the 4th Century of our Common Era.) ITALY

September 23: Octavian was born at Rome to Gaius Octavius and Atia.

He would receive early training from a great uncle, Gaius Iulius Cæsar, and in 27 BCE would become the Emperor Caesar.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

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60 BCE

The 1st (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, , and Gaius Iulius Cæsar).

In this period Marcus Antonius and his intimate friends such as Scribonius Curio and Publius Clodius were preoccupied not by politics or by warfare but in having themselves expansively riotous good times.

Cato the Younger required Caesar to choose between consulship and triumph.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

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59 BCE

At in 80 BCE, the builders of the Small Theater had dug out an amphitheater at the extreme east of the city. The earth removed from the hole had been used to fashion bleachers for the crowd — this is now the oldest known such amphitheater. In this year there broke out in this arena a riot between the Pompeians and the Nocerians that was completed by a famous massacre. After a fight of gladiators organized by the Livineis Regolo who had been banished from the Senate, the incident began as rock throwing and went on to the use of metal weapons to destroy trapped spectators. In result the would exile those who had been prominent in the massacre and, for the following decade, ban all such exciting spectacles. THE

Cato the Younger opposed Gaius Iulius Cæsar’s laws.

Politically, had supported Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, reaching the office of after having been tribune of the people, , and curule . In this year he was one of the 20-member commission that was carrying out the great agrarian scheme of Cæsar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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58 BCE

Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Bibracte the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar defeated the Helvetii under Orgetorix and at the Plain of Alsace these legions defeated the Germans under Ariovistus. On the way to his conquest of “Helvetica” () and the three parts of in the creation of the Pax Romana (a task which he would complete in 50 BCE), he established his castrum or main legion camp atop the Fourvière hill at what is now .

In about this year, the Law on Agrarian Matters. READ THE FULL TEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX

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57 BCE

Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Sabis River the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar defeated the Nervii, creating the Pax Romana.1

1. You will note that in these records of battles leaving fields littered with corpses, the terms “creating the Pax Romana” and “disrupting the Pax Romana” are terms of art — and are employed arbitrarily. Please don’t try to figure out why sometimes the term “creating” is selected, and sometimes the word “disrupting,” as this won’t get you anywhere at all. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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55 BCE

August 26: Gaius Iulius Cæsar arrived for the 1st time in south-eastern Albion (England, we say), bringing with him some 8,000 Roman soldiers to create a Pax Romana. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The gracious people of the island would emplace a coastal marker (as pictured — although they wouldn’t emplace this coastal marker until a long long long long long period of healing had been allowed to occur). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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53 BCE

Mark Antony, who had been serving with Aulus Gabinius in Judaea and Egypt, joined the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar in Gaul.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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52 BCE

During the Gallic War, the siege and massacre of the 40,000 residents of the Gallic oppida at Avaricum. Vercingetorix commented that “the Romans did not conquer by valor nor in the field, but by a kind of art and skill in assault, with which they [] themselves were unacquainted.”

Also, during this year, the broken siege of the Gallic oppida at Gergovia, and the circumvallation and battle of the Gallic oppida at Alesia, in which women and children were evicted from the encircled city to conserve food for its active defenders, only to die of starvation between the opposing walls of the defenders and the besiegers ( offers us some information about these sieges).

Mark Antony was elected quaestor for 51, in which capacity he acted as one of Gaius Iulius Cæsar’s quartermaster generals, with command over legions in the field. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Yet more altercations involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Gergovia the Gauls of Vercingetorix defeated the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar, but at Parisiorum the legions of T. Labienus defeated the Gauls under Camulogenus and near Dijon and at Alesia the legions of Iulius defeated the Gauls under Vercingetorix, restoring the Pax Romana. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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51 BCE

Cato the Younger made an unsuccessful run for consul.

During the Gallic War, the siege of the Gallic oppida at Uxellodunum (Vitruvius offers us some information about this siege).

Mark Antony, left by Gaius Iulius Cæsar in the northern sector in charge of 15 cohorts, accepted the surrender of Commius, leader of the Atrebates.

Ptolemy Auletes died leaving his Egyptian kingdom to his teenage daughter, , and her prepubescent brother Ptolemy XIII, with whom for reasons of tradition she would need to marry. She would become the only pharaoh of the Ptolemy family ever to familiarize herself with the language of her subjects. After the death of Ptolemy XIII and the birth of Caesarion, she would marry another younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, again of course for pharaonic reasons.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

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50 BCE

At about this point, the Funeral Oration for Octavian’s grandmother Julia.

Curio, as tribune of the people, represented the interests of Gaius Iulius Cæsar. Mark Antony was elected augur, and also was elected to function as tribune of the people for the following year. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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49 BCE

2d Period of the Roman Civil Wars (Caesar versus , until 45 BCE).

The (Vitruvius offers us some information about this siege).

At the beginning of the civil war between the party of Gaius Iulius Cæsar and the party of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus, Iulius would drive Pompeius out of Italy, conquering his forces in Spain and then passing into Greece, where Pompeius and the other aristocratic chiefs had assembled a large army. Iulius would give them a decisive defeat at the great battle of Pharsalia. Pompeius would flee for refuge to , where he would be assassinated. Iulius, who followed him there, would become involved in a war with the Egyptians, in which finally he would be victorious. Cleopatra would become Queen of Egypt. Iulius would go into Pontus

and defeat the son of Mithridates, who had taken part in the war against him. He would then proceed to the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Roman province of Africa, where some of the Pompeian chiefs had established themselves, aided by Juba, a native prince. He would overthrow them at the . He would again be obliged to lead an army into Spain, where the sons of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus had collected the wrecks of their father’s party. He would crush the last of his enemies at the . Under the title of Dictator (which is amusing, because we don’t ordinarily think highly of dictators), Iulius would make himself sole master of the Roman world, and would make his given name, Caesar, a synonym for “Emperor of the Romans.” Here three full centuries shall Hector’s race have kingly power; till a priestess queen, by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear; then , wolf-nursed and proudly clad in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive the sceptre of his race. He shall uprear and on his Romans his own name bestow. To these I give no bounded times or power, but empire without end. Yea, even my Queen, Juno, who now chastiseth land and sea with her dread frown, will find a wiser way, and at my sovereign side protect and bless the Romans, masters of the whole round world, who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind. Such my decree! In lapse of seasons due, the heirs of Ilium’s kings shall bind in chains Mycenae’s glory and Achilles’ towers, and over prostrate Argos sit supreme. Of Trojan stock illustriously sprung, lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds, whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he. Him to the skies, in Orient trophies dress, thou shalt with smiles receive; and he, like us, shall hear at his own shrines the suppliant vow. Then will the world grow mild; the battle-sound will be forgot; for olden Honor then, with spotless Vesta, and the brothers twain, Remus and Romulus, at strife no more, will publish sacred laws. The dreadful gates whence issueth war, shall with close-jointed steel be barred impregnably; and prisoned there the heaven-offending Fury, throned on swords, and fettered by a hundred brazen chains, shall belch vain curses from his lips of gore. — Publius Vergilius Maro (), sucking up big time in 19 BCE in the AENEID (as translated here by Theodore C. Williams), would praise the carnage of this civil war as bringing forth the Pax Romana (while he was at it he should have praised Mount Vesuvius as the cat’s pajamas of human population control) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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January 10: When the tribune Mark Antony and a fellow tribune had vetoed a proposal of the Roman Senate that the army of the successful Roman general Gaius Iulius Cæsar be disbanded, the two of them had been ejected by the Senate. They escaped disguised as slaves and joined Caesar in his camp in Cisalpine Gaul, where Caesar exhibited them to his legions before giving them a chance to wash or change, as examples of how shabbily the Republic was treating we steadfast warrior servants who were merely sacrificing ourselves to protect the benefits of the folks back home. Then, disregarding his orders, the general brought his army down across the Rubicon River into the Italian peninsula proper — a hostile and definitive act. He would be Caesar, and a dictator, and a god.

July/August: Julius Caesar was in Spain, having left Lepidus in charge of administrative matters in Rome and Mark Antony to command his troops remaining in Italy. When Caesar returned and led his legions in an advance down the east coast of Italy, Antony held Arretium for him. The Senate would be forced into flight.

Cato the Younger fled with Pompey and the Senate toward Greece.

November: To settle matters with Pompey and the Roman Senate, Julius Caesar embarked for Greece. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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48 BCE

Antipater the Idumaean sent his older son Phasael to Judaea to be governor of Jerusalem and his younger son Herod (who would come to be known as “Herod the Great”) to be governor of nearby Galilee.

Cleopatra was removed from power by Theodotas and Achillas. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April: Mark Antony sailed for Greece with four legions and the remainder of Julius Caesar’s cavalry, to play a role in some naval battles and then in the engagement at Dyrrachium.

August: Yet more battles involving our favorite pushy people: at Dyrrachium in what is now Albania the legions of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus defeated the legions of Gaius Julius Caesar and at Pharsalus in Thessaly the legions of Caesar (Mark Antony commanding the army’s left wing) defeated the legions of Pompey the Great, restoring the Pax Romana (Vitruvius offers us some information about these battles).

During the civil war Marcus Terentius Varro had been in command of one of Pompey’s armies in the Ilerda campaign. He would escape the penalties of being on the losing side in a civil war through two pardons granted by Caesar, one prior to and the other subsequent to the .

When Pompey was defeated, Cato the Younger fled to Africa. Afterward, Julius Caesar would dispatch Antony back to Rome with the legions he did not immediately need, to look after his interests. When Caesar would be appointed dictator Antony would become his . HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Julius Caesar restored Cleopatra to the Egyptian throne and took her to bed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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September 28 or 29: After Gaius Iulius Cæsar had defeated the legions of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus at the battle of Pharsalus, Marcus Tullius Cicero had made his peace with Caesar. However, on this day, as he stepped ashore at Alexandria, “Pompey the Great” was murdered (his murderers would offer his head to Caesar — but that would be, it might be opinioned, “their little mistake”). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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47 BCE

Yet further altercations involving our favorite pushy people, those roamin’ Romans: at Zela in what is now Turkey the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar defeated the army of Pontus under Pharnaces (Vitruvius offers us some information about this battle), and at Alexandria they defeated the Egyptians under Ptolemy III, creating the Pax Romana.

(Unfortunately, while this was going down there was some unavoidable collateral damage which nobody wanted: the library of Ptolemy I Soter in Alexandria was destroyed by fire.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Mark Antony’s tactics and manner offended the senate. In his attempting to disperse a group of debtors who were protesting in the , unfortunately, some of the debtors had gotten themselves killed!

In this year Antony divorced Antonia in order to marry Fulvia (the widow of Clodius and, subsequently, of Curio).

Gaius Iulius Cæsar uttered the telegraphic Veni Vedi Veci (“Came, Saw, Conquered”) to commemorate his army’s easy victory over King Pharnaces II of Pontus, a kingdom in Asia Minor. This slogan would later be incorporated into a sign mounted on a decorated wagon, that would be paraded through Rome to remind everyone of the promptness with which Caesar might bring dismay to any who attempted to interfere with his progress (there’s no harm in reminding people).

Caesar appointed Marcus Terentius Varro to oversee the public library of Rome. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 23: Cleopatra gave birth to a son named Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, whom she would refer to as Caesarion meaning “Little Caesar.” (This son was acclaimed to the Egyptian people not as a child of a visiting Roman general but rather as a child of Amon-Re.)

August 2: Gaius Iulius Cæsar declared Veni Vidi Vici “I came, I saw, I conquered” in regard to his having defeated the Pharnaces at Zela in Asia Minor. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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46 BCE

Mark Antony held no posts.

Cleopatra was in Rome with her toddler “Caesarion,” residing at Julius Caesar’s villa outside the city.

1 Establishment of the Julian solar calendar made up of 365 /4 days, with a leap year. (This had been previously attempted — but the previous attempt to establish such a calendar had failed due to lack of support.) ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April 6: Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people: at Thapsus to the east of on the coast of

Africa the legions of Gaius Julius Caesar defeated the legions of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, creating the Pax Romana. Cato the Younger, at Utica to the west of Carthage (he had not participated in the battle), concluded that there was no longer any way to continue the struggle. Here he is as depicted in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Musee du Louvre, reading Plato’s PHAEDO in preparation for offing himself.

According to , when Cato stabbed himself the wound was not fatal, the sword was taken away, and a physician stitched him up — but after the physician had left Cato managed to complete the job by stoically pulling out his intestines. If the above statue made Cato out as being younger than he actually was at the time that he came to the messy end of his road, in the HBO series “Rome” Karl Johnson portrays a Cato who was noticeably too old. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Vitruvius offers us some information about this battle, as he likewise offers us some information about the siege at Larignum in 56 BCE, the sieges at Avaricum, Gergovia, and Alesia in 52 BCE, the siege at Uxellodunum in 51 BCE, siege at Massilia in 49 BCE, the battles at Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus in 48 BCE, and the battle at Zela in 47 BCE — which offers us evidence that he had most likely been serving in the ballista auxiliary unit of the Legio VI Ferrata. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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45 BCE

As in the year before, Mark Antony held no posts, and Cleopatra was in Rome with her toddler “Caesarion,” residing at Julius Caesar’s villa outside the city. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March 17: Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at the plain of Munda on the Iberian peninsula the legions of Gaius Julius Caesar defeated the legions of Titus Labienus and Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey’s oldest son), creating the Pax Romana.

Octavian was with Julius Caesar during this battle. Later he would go to Apollonia to study and to await his uncle’s expedition to Parthia.

Mark Antony would meet Julius Caesar on the latter’s return from Spain, and traveled with him in his carriage. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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44 BCE

Julius Caesar’s charter for the settlement at Urso on the Iberian peninsula. READ THE FULL TEXT

The Law of Caesar on Municipalities. READ THE FULL TEXT

Mark Antony was co-consul with Julius Caesar.

As had been the case for several years, Cleopatra was in Rome with her toddler “Caesarion,” residing at Julius HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Caesar’s villa outside the city. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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February 15: In the name of the people, Mark Antony publicly offered Gaius Iulius Cæsar the Dictator Perpetuus a kingly crown, a stage gesture which was of course declined. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March 15: On the Ides of March, Gaius Iulius Cæsar the Dictator Perpetuus allegedly was assassinated by Brutus et

al in the Senate-house (or perhaps suffered a fatal epileptic fit). When Caesar’s will is opened, it is discovered that he has adopted Octavian and designated him as his principal heir.

Cleopatra fled from Rome to Alexandria with her son by Caesar, Caesarion. The civil wars would soon begin

again, with Brutus and Cassius at the head of the aristocratic party, and with the party of Caesar being led by Mark Antony and Octavian (afterwards Augustus Caesar):

We say this was 44 BCE although the Romans considered a year to have begun on the 18th birthday of Romulus, circa 750 BCE — so from their standpoint this was happening in the year 706 of the city of Rome.

The Romans did not have a seven-day week and did not count the days of a month beginning with 1. Instead, the Roman monthly calendar was based on the first three phases of the moon, and three days of a month had unique names. Each month began with a day of the new moon referred to as the Kalends, the day on which bills were due for payment. (Romans were all about payment, and their KALENDARIUM was an account- HDT WHAT? INDEX

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book in which creditors entered the names of their debtors and the sums which they owed; this vital ledger was so called because interest on borrowed money was due on the Kalendae of each month.)

Then when the moon reached its first quarter that was the day of the Nones, this happening usually on the 5th or 7th of the month. A day referred to as the Ides would come on the 13th or 15th of the month, when the moon supposedly was full. (I say “supposedly” because the calendar in use was an accident waiting to happen, and kept drifting out of whack.)

They never counted in terms of days after, only in terms of days before. Their full phrase for “on the second of January” was “ante diem quartum nonas Januarias.” The phrase “ante diem,” commonly abbreviated as “ad,” might be omitted, the name of the day becoming “quartum nonas Januarias.” Thus: • To refer to “March 1st,” in , one says “the Kalends of Martius.” • To refer to “March 2nd,” in Latin, one says “V Nonas Martius” or “5 days before the Nones of Martius.” • To refer to “March 3rd,” in Latin, one says “IV Nonas Martius” or “4 days before the Nones of Martius.” • To refer to “March 4th,” in Latin, one says “III Nonas Martius” or “3 days before the Nones of Martius.” • To refer to “March 5th,” in Latin, one says “II Nonas Martius” or “2 days before the Nones of Martius.” • To refer to “March 6th,” in Latin, one says “I Nonas Martius” or “the day before the Nones of Martius.” • To refer to “March 7th,” in Latin, one says “the Nonas of Martius.” (The Nones was the 7th day in Martius, Maius, Quinctilis, and October, and the 5th in other months.) • To refer to “March 8th,” in Latin, one says “VII Ides Martius” or “7 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 9th,” in Latin, one says “VI Ides Martius” or “6 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 10th,” in Latin, one says “V Ides Martius” or “5 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 11th,” in Latin, one says “IV Ides Martius” or “4 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 12th,” in Latin, one says “III Ides Martius” or “3 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 13th,” in Latin, one says “II Ides Martius” or “2 days before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 14th,” in Latin, one says “I Ides Martius” or “the day before the Ides of Martius.” • To refer to “March 15th,” in Latin, one says “the Ides of Martius.” (The Ides was the 15th day in Martius, Maius, July, and Quinctilis, and the 13th in other months.) • To refer to “March 16th,” in Latin, one says “XVI Kalends Aprilis” or “16 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 17th,” in Latin, one says “XV Kalends Aprilis” or “15 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 18th,” in Latin, one says “XIV Kalends Aprilis” or “14 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 19th,” in Latin, one says “XIII Kalends Aprilis” or “13 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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• To refer to “March 20th,” in Latin, one says “XII Kalends Aprilis” or “12 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 21st,” in Latin, one says “XI Kalends Aprilis” or “11 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 22nd,” in Latin, one says “X Kalends Aprilis” or “10 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 23rd,” in Latin, one says “IX Kalends Aprilis” or “9 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 24th,” in Latin, one says “VIII Kalends Aprilis” or “8 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 25th,” in Latin, one says “VII Kalends Aprilis” or “7 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 26th,” in Latin, one says “VI Kalends Aprilis” or “6 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 27th,” in Latin, one says “V Kalends Aprilis” or “5 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 28th,” in Latin, one says “IV Kalends Aprilis” or “4 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 29th,” in Latin, one says “III Kalends Aprilis” or “3 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 30th,” in Latin, one says “II Kalends Aprilis” or “2 days before the Kalends of Aprilis.” • To refer to “March 31st,” in Latin, one says “I Kalends Aprilis” or “the day before the Kalends of Aprilis.”

I should mention, however, that I fancy that Caesar was not assassinated on the Ides of March. I think what happened was that unexpectedly the guy had one of his epileptic fits, and croaked, and then his political cronies had suddenly to figure out how they were going to spin this — and they decided they would make this perfectly ordinary death appear as if it had been a foul assassination by their political rivals. My reasons for inferring that this was what happened is that they got a bit too dramatic, and a bit too superstitious, in their playing out of the scenario. For instance, they claimed the corpse had the exact number of stab wounds as the number of political-rival assassins whom they were entitled to hunt down and summarily off, in spite of the fact that upon autopsy this corpse was found to have only one fatal stab-wound. They claimed that their leader had known that he was in special danger on this day and yet had dismissed his bodyguard, to approach his known enemies against whom he had been warned entirely unarmed and unguarded. They claimed to have found a piece of parchment clutched in the cold bloody fist, that provided them with the names of the assassins — but this of course is so preposterous that today it would be presumed to be direct evidence of a frame-up. Since Caesar had been proclaimed as a deity, we can understand that for him to have become understood to have died of one of his epileptic fits would have been for him to have been unmasked as no deity at all, but instead revealed as an impostor — with the most extreme of political consequences for his cronies. An immortal may not die of some disgustingly ordinary illness; however, a man proclaimed immortal may yet die due to the agency of evil- wishing others. Therefore the political colleagues of this tin hero, I suspect, made a list of all the problem people, senators whom otherwise they would have needed to neutralize, and solved their two problems at once by inserting this list into the bloody grip. They solved their immediate problem, of how an immortal can perish and still be allowed as a deity, and simultaneously they solved totally their grand problem, of how to maintain their control over the city and the empire. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March 17: Mark Antony, as surviving consul, convened the Roman Senate, and with Lepidus as magister equitum, established order. The senate confirmed the acts of Gaius Iulius Cæsar, but offered amnesties to his murderers, and agreed to the terms of his will being read out, and to a public funeral, which would be spectacularly stage- managed by Antony. Octavian, to everyone’s surprise and to Antony’s fury, was discovered to be Caesar’s principal heir. Antony managed to get his appointment for the following year as governor of Macedonia switched to a 5-year tenure in Cisalpine Gaul, and appropriated four legions stationed in Macedonia. Marcus Tullius Cicero began his “Philippics,” attacking Antony, who left for Cisalpine Gaul and besieged Decimus Brutus, the province’s previous governor, in Mutina.

Early May: Octavian met with Mark Antony at the Horti Pompei (Pompey’s Gardens) in Rome, to attempt to collect his legacy because Mark Antony had placed himself in actual possession of Julius Caesar’s papers and fortune.

In May and June, in China and in Korea, a reddish-yellow comet had been observed, with its tail spanning some 12 degrees in the northwest. Within a few days it was near the constellation of Orion, and it had a 15- degree tail that had rotated toward the northeast. THE COMET OF 44 BC AND CAESAR’S FUNERAL GAMES was published by Scholars Press on the ides of March in 1997, the 2,040th anniversary of Caesar’s demise. Written by John Ramsey of the Classics Department and Lewis Licht of the Physics Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, this study draws upon the sources in the Orient, as well as the Greco-Roman world, to shed new light on the probable orbit of the great daylight comet seen in the north for three to seven days in July 44 BCE during the games that Octavian was holding in honor of the supposedly assassinated Gaius Iulius Cæsar (actually, he may merely have had one of his epileptic fits and died in a manner very much unlike what we imagine as the apotheosis of a deity, after which his political colleagues made it look like a political assassination in order to be able to legitimate their killing off of a good bunch of the opposition politicians), and on the factors that caused it in this case to be treated not as a baleful omen but as a sign of Caesar’s apotheosis. For details, visit http://www.uic.edu/las/clas/comet; or send e-mail to [email protected].

ASTRONOMY In this period of the earth’s history, there was no “North Star” marking the direction of the North Pole.

As constellations progress across the sky through the course of a single night, they change their orientation, but not their defining patterns, or their relative spacings. Waldo Emerson lauded this permanence: “Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving no space, no shade, no scars, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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No trace of age, no fear to die.”

The changing appearance of the earth’s moon, however, has fascinated all cultures. Some have professed to be comforted by the faithful regularity of its gentle waxing and waning, fortnight by fortnight. Others, however, have been troubled by this as it is construed to be inconstancy in the heavens, which is exactly the wrong place for there to be inconstancy. Thus in William Shakespeare’s romance, when Romeo attempts a pledge on the moon, this is a wrong move as it does nothing but distress his Juliet: Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops Juliet: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. (II.2.109-111)

Eclipses are not only changes, but because they bring darkness, they are an even worse sign of disaster. Having just murdered his wife Desdemona, Othello wonders how she can look so virtuous and wonders why no disruption in nature comes as a sign of the universe being so out of order: ...She’s dead... Still as the grave... I think she stirs again... My wife, my wife! I have no wife. O insupportable! O heavy hour! Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Of sun and moon, and that th’ affrighted globe Should yawn at alteration... (V.2.115-125)

Comets show up at unpredictable times, thus upsetting the invariance of the universe, and so they obviously also are omens of evil to come. In “Henry VI,” the Duke of Bedford remarks upon the death of the greatest English hero, Henry V: Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, And with them scourge the bad revolting stars That have consented unto Henry’s death. (I.1.2-5)

The planets are wanderers, and wandering is considered to be inherently disorderly. Disorder, in the heavens where only the perfection of order ought to appear, produces uncertainty and foretells disaster here below. As Ulysses observes in “Troilus and Cressida”: ...when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents, what mutiny, What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth, Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! (I.3.94-101)

In contrast, the playwright has his main Roman, in his tragedy “Julius Caesar,” affirm himself to be “constant as the Northern Star, of whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.” How stalwart is this politician Julius! When the conspirators pretend to plea that Gaius Iulius Cæsar should pardon the exiled Publius Cimber, great Caesar is entirely unswayed: Caesar: I could be well moved, if I were as you But I am constant as the Northern Star, Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks; They are all fire, and every one doth shine. But there’s one in all doth hold his place. So in the world: ’tis furnished well with men, And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive. Yet in the number I do know but one That unassailable holds onto his rank, Unshaked of motion; and that I am he Let me a little show it, even in this: That I was constant Cimber should be banished HDT WHAT? INDEX

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And constant do remain to keep him so. (III.1.64-79)

Shakespeare was, evidently, supposing the star Polaris, marking the earth’s north pole, to be, as opposed to the planet’s inconstant moon, some sort of gold standard of astronomical fixity — though in fact it is variable. Astronomers have known for some time that although this object 310 light years away from us now hangs in our sky roughly above the earth’s North Pole, it has not always been in such a position, definitely will not in the remote future be in that position, and anyway, is a Cepheid variable the visibility of which can be expected to change markedly from time to time. The Earth’s axis precesses (it is like a wobbling top), so in about 14,000 years, Vega (the brightest star in the constellation Lyra) will be the North Star, and then in another 5,000 years it will be Alpha Cephei (the brightest star in the constellation Cepheus), but at the completion of the entire cycle of 26,000 years — it will be Polaris again. This cycle known as precession is caused by the gravitational

attraction of the sun and the moon, acting on the fact that the planet Earth is not quite spherical. Back in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, however it had another star, Thuban (the brightest star in the constellation Draco), that had functioned as this planet’s North Star. Over time, as the axis of our planet has tipped, the constellation Draco had been moving along, and so by the 1st Century BCE, during the reign of Julius Caesar, there was no star at all in that polar position — only a pretend Caesar with the sensibilities of Shakespeare’s era could have made such a remark about stellar constancy. For, by Shakespeare’s era, Polaris had wandered into the region near the pole once occupied by Thuban — and Shakespeare, no astronomer, was presuming incorrectly that this had ever been so.

A “Cepheid variable” is a type of star that has almost exhausted its hydrogen fuel and is, consequently, caught in a cycle of bloating and collapsing. Polaris brightens or dims every four days or so, and over the period of time that we have been observing it, these pulsations have been slowing, with its period of oscillation between bright and dim lengthening by about eight seconds each year. Even on average, the brightness of Polaris has historically been unstable. For instance, over the past half a century it has now brightened on average by 10%, becoming a star of the 2d magnitude of brightness (magnitude is a scale devised by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 120 BCE ranking stars from 1st-magnitude bright, very bright and noticeable in the heavens, to 6th-magnitude dim, so dim as to be next to invisible — its change from 3d magnitude to 2d magnitude would indicate that Polaris has become about 2.5 times as bright as it had been a couple of millennia ago), but during Thoreau’s 19th Century, it appears to have been on average about 20% dimmer even than before it began this current brightening trend. During the 16th Century, according to Tycho Brahe, it had been HDT WHAT? INDEX

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even dimmer. In 140 CE, when Ptolemy of Alexandria had made a star catalog, he had listed Polaris as a star of but the 3d magnitude, and in the 10th Century, when the Persian astronomer al-Sufi had checked Ptolemy’s evaluations, he had confirmed Ptolemy’s evaluation of Polaris as a star of merely the 3d magnitude. . .. NORTH STAR. . BIG DIPPER . . . . Actually, it is incorrect to refer to the Big Dipper (in England this is known as “the plough,” to American slaves it was “the drinking gourd”) as a constellation. Among the 88 groups of stars that are officially recognized and listed as constellations, there is of course the constellation Ursa Major. The Big Dipper, however, is merely a conspicuous portion of that constellation. Such a star pattern as the Big Dipper is referred to as an asterism, rather than as a constellation. This asterism is presently helpful, for it presently helps us to identify Polaris, the North Star. Two bright stars mark the outer edge of the bowl of the Big Dipper. These two stars –Dubhe and Merak– we term the Pointer Stars, due to the fact that they direct our eyes toward Polaris. Draw a line across the night sky, in your imagination, between these two stars, and then prolong this line about 5 times, and your eyes will arrive at a moderately bright star. Polaris. –But that is merely for the present, as, of the seven stars that make up this asterism, five of the closer ones (78 to 84 light years from Earth) are swarming through space at roughly the same speed and in the same direction, but two of the farther away ones (Alkaid, 101 light years from Earth, and Dubhe, 124 light years from Earth) are moving at a different speed in an opposite direction. Due to these differing motions, the asterism now known as the Big Dipper will eventually tear itself apart. The bent handle will bend even more, while the spreading bowl will spread even more. In 50,000 years there will no longer be a recognizable dipper shape.

There remains an unanswered question, however. Why would it have been that, in WALDEN, Thoreau identified the pole star as having the name Kalpa? –For, in Hindu cosmology, “Kalpa” is not the name assigned to any object, but instead is the name assigned to a very lengthy period of time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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WALDEN: There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed PEOPLE OF to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make WALDEN a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote CANDAHARS? the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa KALPA? was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

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CAESAR

By Plutarch, written 75 A.C.E. As translated by John Dryden After Sylla became master of Rome, he wished to make Caesar put away his wife Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, the late sole ruler of the commonwealth, but was unable to effect it either by promises or intimidation, and so contented himself with confiscating her dowry. The ground of Sylla’s hostility to Caesar was the relationship between him and Marius; for Marius, the elder, married Julia, the sister of Caesar’s father, and had by her the younger Marius, who consequently was Caesar’s first cousin. And though at the beginning, while so many were to be put to death, and there was so much to do, Caesar was overlooked by Sylla, yet he would not keep quiet, but presented himself to the people as a candidate for the priesthood, though he was yet a mere boy. Sylla, without any open opposition, took measures to have him rejected, and in consultation whether he should be put to death, when it was urged by some that it was not worth his while to contrive the death of a boy, he answered, that they knew little who did not see more than one Marius in that boy. Caesar, on being informed of this saying, concealed himself, and for a considerable time kept out of the way in the country of the Sabines, often changing his quarters, till one night, as he was removing from one house to another on account of his health, he fell into the hands of Sylla’s soldiers, who were searching those parts in order to apprehend any who had absconded. Caesar, by a bribe of two talents, prevailed with Cornelius, their captain, to let him go, and was no sooner dismissed but he put to sea and made for Bithynia. After a short stay there with Nicomedes, the king, in his passage back he was taken near the island of Pharmacusa by some of the pirates, who, at that time, with large fleets of ships and innumerable smaller vessels, infested the seas everywhere. When these men at first demanded of him twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not understanding the value of their prisoner, and voluntarily engaged to give them fifty. He presently despatched those about him to several places to raise the money, till at last he was left among a set of the most bloodthirsty people in the world, the Cilicians, only with one friend and two attendants. Yet he made so little of them, that when he had a mind to sleep, he would send to them, and order them to make no noise. For thirty-eight days, with all the freedom in the world, he amused himself with joining in their exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards. He wrote verses and speeches, and made them his auditors, and those who did not admire them, he called to their faces illiterate and barbarous, and would often, in raillery, threaten to hang them. They were greatly taken with this, and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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attributed his free talking to a kind of simplicity and boyish playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come from Miletus, he paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once to man some ships at the port of Miletus, and went in pursuit of the pirates, whom he surprised with their ships still stationed at the island, and took most of them. Their money he made his prize, and the men he secured in prison at Pergamus, and he made application to Junius, who was then governor of Asia, to whose office it belonged, as praetor, to determine their punishment. Junius, having his eye upon the money, for the sum was considerable, said he would think at his leisure what to do with the prisoners, upon which Caesar took his leave of him, and went off to Pergamus, where he ordered the pirates to be brought forth and crucified; the punishment he had often threatened them with whilst he was in their hands, and they little dreamt he was in earnest. In the meantime Sylla’s power being now on the decline, Caesar’s friends advised him to return to Rome, but he went to Rhodes, and entered himself in the school of Apollonius, Molon’s son, a famous rhetorician, one who had the reputation of a worthy man, and had Cicero for one of his scholars. Caesar is said to have been admirably fitted by nature to make a great statesman and orator, and to have taken such pains to improve his genius this way that without dispute he might challenge the second place. More he did not aim at, as choosing to be first rather amongst men of arms and power, and, therefore, never rose to that height of eloquence to which nature would have carried him, his attention being diverted to those expeditions and designs which at length gained him the empire. And he himself, in his answer to Cicero’s panegyric on Cato, desires his reader not to compare the plain discourse of a soldier with the harangues of an orator who had not only fine parts, but had employed his life in this study. When he was returned to Rome, he accused Dolabella of mal- administration, and many cities of Greece came in to attest it. Dolabella was acquitted, and Caesar, in return for the support he had received from the Greeks, assisted them in their prosecution of Publius Antonius for corrupt practices, before Marcus Lucullus, praetor of Macedonia. In this course he so far succeeded, that Antonius was forced to appeal to the at Rome, alleging that in Greece he could not have fair play against Grecians. In his pleadings at Rome, his eloquence soon obtained him great credit and favour, and he won no less upon the affections of the people by affability of his manners and address, in which he showed a tact and consideration beyond what could have been expected at his age; and the open house he kept, the entertainments he gave, and the general splendour of his manner of life contributed little by little to create and increase his political influence. His enemies slighted the growth of it at first, presuming it would soon fail when his money was gone; whilst in the meantime it was growing up and flourishing among the common people. When his power at last was HDT WHAT? INDEX

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established and not to be overthrown, and now openly tended to the altering of the whole constitution, they were aware too late that there is no beginning so mean, which continued application will not make considerable, and that despising a danger at first will make it at last irresistible. Cicero was the first who had any suspicions of his designs upon the government, and as a good pilot is apprehensive of a storm when the sea is most smiling, saw the designing temper of the man through this disguise of good humour and affability, and said that, in general, in all he did and undertook, he detected the ambition for absolute power, “but when I see his hair so carefully arranged, and observe him adjusting it with one finger, I cannot imagine it should enter into such a man’s thoughts to subvert the Roman state.” But of this more hereafter. The first proof he had of the people’s good-will to him was when he received by their suffrages a tribuneship in the army, and came out on the list with a higher place than Caius Popilius. A second and clearer instance of their favour appeared upon his making a magnificent oration in praise of his aunt Julia, wife to Marius, publicly in the forum, at whose funeral he was so bold as to bring forth the images of Marius, which nobody had dared to produce since the government came into Sylla’s hands, Marius’s party having from that time been declared enemies of the state. When some who were present had begun to raise a cry against Caesar, the people answered with loud shouts and clapping in his favour, expressing their joyful surprise and satisfaction at his having, as it were, brought up again from the grave those honours of Marius, which for so long a time had been lost to the city. It had always been the custom at Rome to make funeral orations in praise of elderly matrons, but there was no precedent of any upon young women till Caesar first made one upon the death of his own wife. This also procured him favour, and by this show of affection he won upon the feelings of the people, who looked upon him as a man of great tenderness and kindness of heart. After he had buried his wife, he went as quaestor into Spain under one of the , named Vetus, whom he honoured ever after, and made his son his own quaestor, when he himself came to be praetor. After this employment was ended, he married Pompeia, his third wife, having then a daughter by Cornelia, his first wife, whom he afterwards married to Pompey the Great. He was so profuse in his expenses that, before he had any public employment, he was in debt thirteen hundred talents, and many thought that by incurring such expense to be popular he changed a solid good for what would prove but a short and uncertain return; but in truth he was purchasing what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable rate. When he was made surveyor of the Way, he disbursed, besides the public money, a great sum out of his private purse; and when he was aedile, he provided such a number of gladiators, that he entertained the people with three hundred and twenty single combats, and by his great liberality and magnificence in theatrical shows, in processions, and public feastings, he threw HDT WHAT? INDEX

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into the shade all the attempts that had been made before him, and gained so much upon the people, that every one was eager to find out new offices and new honours for him in return for his munificence. There being two factions in the city, one that of Sylla, which was very powerful, the other that of Marius, which was then broken and in a low condition, he undertook to revive this and to make it his own. And to this end, whilst he was in the height of his repute with the people for the magnificent shows he gave as aedile, he ordered images of Marius and figures of Victory, with trophies in their hands, to be carried privately in the night and placed in the capitol. Next morning when some saw them bright with gold and beautifully made, with inscriptions upon them, referring them to Marius’s exploits over the Cimbrians, they were surprised at the boldness of him who had set them up, nor was it difficult to guess who it was. The fame of this soon spread and brought together a great concourse of people. Some cried out that it was an open attempt against the established government thus to revive those honours which had been buried by the laws and decrees of the senate; that Caesar had done it to sound the temper of the people whom he had prepared before, and to try whether they were tame enough to bear his humour, and would quietly give way to his innovations. On the other hand, Marius’s party took courage, and it was incredible how numerous they were suddenly seen to be, and what a multitude of them appeared and came shouting into the capitol. Many, when they saw Marius’s likeness, cried for joy, and Caesar was highly extolled as the one man, in the place of all others, who was a relation worthy of Marius. Upon this the senate met, and Catulus Lutatius, one of the most eminent Romans of that time, stood up and inveighed against Caesar, closing his speech with the remarkable saying that Caesar was now not working mines, but planting batteries to overthrow the state. But when Caesar had made an apology for himself, and satisfied the senate, his admirers were very much animated, and advised him not to depart from his own thoughts for any one, since with the people’s good favour he would ere long get the better of them all, and be the first man in the commonwealth. At this time, Metellus, the high priest, died, and Catulus and Isauricus, persons of the highest reputation, and who had great influence in the senate, were competitors for the office, yet Caesar would not give way to them, but presented himself to the people as a candidate against them. The several parties seeming very equal, Catulus, who, because he had the most honour to lose, was the most apprehensive of the event, sent to Caesar to buy him off, with offers of a great sum of money. But his answer was, that he was ready to borrow a larger sum than that to carry on the contest. Upon the day of election, as his mother conducted him out of doors with tears after embracing her, “My mother,” he said, “to-day you will see me either high priest or an exile.” When the votes were taken, after a great struggle, he carried it, and excited among the senate and nobility great alarm lest HDT WHAT? INDEX

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he might now urge on the people to every kind of insolence. And Piso and Catulus found fault with Cicero for having let Caesar escape, when in the conspiracy of Catiline he had given the government such advantage against him. For Catiline, who had designed not only to change the present state of affairs, but to subvert the whole empire and confound all, had himself taken to flight, while the evidence was yet incomplete against him, before his ultimate purposes had been properly discovered. But he had left Lentulus and Cethegus in the city to supply his place in the conspiracy, and whether they received any secret encouragement and assistance from Caesar is uncertain; all that is certain is, that they were fully convicted in the senate, and when Cicero, the consul, asked the several opinions of the senators, how they would have them punished, all who spoke before Caesar sentenced them to death; but Caesar stood up and made a set speech, in which he told them that he thought it without precedent and not just to take away the lives of persons of their birth and distinction before they were fairly tried, unless there was an absolute necessity for it; but that if they were kept confined in any towns of Italy Cicero himself should choose till Catiline was defeated, then the senate might in peace and at their leisure determine what was best to be done. This sentence of his carried so much appearance of humanity, and he gave it such advantage by the eloquence with which he urged it, that not only those who spoke after him closed with it, but even they who had before given a contrary opinion now came over to his, till it came about to Catulus’s and Cato’s turn to speak. They warmly opposed it, and Cato intimated in his speech the suspicion of Caesar himself, and pressed the matter so strongly that the criminals were given up to suffer execution. As Caesar was going out of the senate, many of the young men who at that time acted as guards to Cicero ran in with their naked swords to assault him. But Curio, it is said, threw his gown over him, and conveyed him away, and Cicero himself, when the young men looked up to see his wishes, gave a sign not to kill him, either for fear of the people or because he thought the murder unjust and illegal. If this be true, I wonder how Cicero came to omit all mention of it in his book about his consulship. He was blamed, however, afterwards, for not having made use of so fortunate an opportunity against Caesar, as if he had let it escape him out of fear of the populace, who, indeed, showed remarkable solicitude about Caesar, and some time after, when he went into the senate to clear himself of the suspicions he lay under, and found great clamours raised against him, upon the senate in consequence sitting longer than ordinary, they went up to the house in a tumult, and beset it, demanding Caesar, and requiring them to dismiss him. Upon this, Cato, much fearing some movement among the poor citizens, who were always the first to kindle the flame among the people, and placed all their hopes in Caesar, persuaded the senate to give them a monthly allowance of corn, an expedient which put the commonwealth to the extraordinary charge of seven million five hundred thousand HDT WHAT? INDEX

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drachmas in the year, but quite succeeded in removing the great cause of terror for the present, and very much weakened Caesar’s power, who at that time was just going to be made praetor, and consequently would have been more formidable by his office. But there was no disturbance during his praetorship, only what misfortune he met with in his own domestic affairs. Publius Clodius was a patrician by descent, eminent both for his riches and eloquence, but in licentiousness of life and audacity exceeded the most noted profligates of the day. He was in love with Pompeia, Caesar’s wife, and she had no aversion to him. But there was strict watch kept on her apartment, and Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, who was a discreet woman, being continually about her, made any interview very dangerous and difficult. The Romans have a goddess whom they call Bona, the same whom the Greeks call Gynaecea. The Phrygians, who claim a peculiar title to her, say she was mother to Midas. The Romans profess she was one of the Dryads, and married to Faunus. The Grecians affirm that she is that mother of Bacchus whose name is not to be uttered, and, for this reason, the women who celebrate her festival cover the tents with vine-branches, and, in accordance with the fable, a consecrated serpent is placed by the goddess. It is not lawful for a man to be by, nor so much as in the house, whilst the rites are celebrated, but the women by themselves perform the sacred offices, which are said to be much the same with those used in the solemnities of Orpheus. When the festival comes, the husband, who is either consul or praetor, and with him every male creature, quits the house. The wife then taking it under her care sets it in order, and the principal ceremonies are performed during the night, the women playing together amongst themselves as they keep watch, and music of various kinds going on. As Pompeia was at that time celebrating this feast, Clodius, who as yet had no beard, and so thought to pass undiscovered, took upon him the dress and ornaments of a singing woman, and so came thither, having the air of a young girl. Finding the doors open, he was without any stop introduced by the maid, who was in the intrigue. She presently ran to tell Pompeia, but as she was away a long time, he grew uneasy in waiting for her, and left his post and traversed the house from one room to another, still taking care to avoid the lights, till at last Aurelia’s woman met him, and invited him to play with her, as the women did among themselves. He refused to comply, and she presently pulled him forward, and asked him who he was and whence he Clodius told her he was waiting for Pompeia’s own maid, Abra, being in fact her own name also, and as he said so, betrayed himself by his voice. Upon which the woman shrieking, ran into the company where there were lights, and cried out she had discovered a man. The women were all in a fright. Aurelia covered up the sacred things and stopped the proceedings, and having ordered the doors to be shut, went about with lights to find Clodius, who was got into the maid’s room that he had come in with, and was seized there. The women knew him, and drove him out of doors, and at once, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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that same night, went home and told their husbands the story. In the morning, it was all about the town, what an impious attempt Clodius had made, and how he ought to be punished as an offender, not only against those whom he had offended, but also against the public and the gods. Upon which one of the tribunes impeached him for profaning the holy rites, and some of the principal senators combined together and gave evidence against him, that besides many other horrible crimes, he had been guilty of incest with his own sister, who was married to Lucullus. But the people set themselves against this combination of the nobility, and defended Clodius, which was of great service to him with the judges, who took alarm and were afraid to provoke the multitude. Caesar at once dismissed Pompeia, but being summoned as a witness against Clodius, said he had nothing to charge him with. This looking like a paradox, the accuser asked him why he parted with his wife. Caesar replied, “I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected.” Some say that Caesar spoke this as his real thought, others, that he did it to gratify the people, who were very earnest to save Clodius. Clodius, at any rate, escaped; most of the judges giving their opinions so written as to be illegible that they might not be in danger from the people by condemning him, nor in disgrace with the nobility by acquitting him. Caesar, in the meantime, being out of his praetorship, had got the province of Spain, but was in great embarrassment with his creditors, who, as he was going off, came upon him, and were very pressing and importunate. This led him to apply himself to Crassus, who was the richest man in Rome, but wanted Caesar’s youthful vigour and heat to sustain the opposition against Pompey. Crassus took upon him to satisfy those creditors who were most uneasy to him, and would not be put off any longer, and engaged himself to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, upon which Caesar was now at liberty to go to his province. In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps, and passing by a small village of the barbarians with but few inhabitants, and those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the question among themselves by way of mockery, if there were any canvassing for offices there; any contention which should be uppermost, or feuds of great men one against another. To which Caesar made answer seriously, “For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.” It is said that another time, when free from business in Spain, after reading some part of the history of Alexander, he sat a great while very thoughtful, and at last burst out into tears. His friends were surprised, and asked him the reason of it. “Do you think,” said he, “I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable.” As soon as he came into Spain he was very active, and in a few days had got together ten new cohorts of foot in addition to the twenty which were there before. With these he marched against the Calaici and Lusitani and conquered them, and advancing as HDT WHAT? INDEX

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far as the ocean, subdued the tribes which never before had been subject to the Romans. Having managed his military affairs with good success, he was equally happy, in the course of his civil government. He took pains to establish a good understanding amongst the several states, and no less care to heal the differences between debtors and creditors. He ordered that the creditor should receive two parts of the debtor’s yearly income, and that the other part should be managed by the debtor himself, till by this method the whole debt was at last discharged. This conduct made him leave his province with a fair reputation; being rich himself, and having enriched his soldiers, and having received from them the honourable name of . There is a law among the Romans, that whoever desires the honour of a triumph must stay without the city and expect his answer. And another, that those who stand for the consulship shall appear personally upon the place. Caesar was come home at the very time of choosing consuls, and being in a difficulty between these two opposite laws, sent to the senate to desire that, since he was obliged to be absent, he might sue for the consulship by his friends. Cato, being backed by the law, at first opposed his request; afterwards perceiving that Caesar had prevailed with a great part of the senate to comply with it, he made it his business to gain time, and went on wasting the whole day in speaking. Upon which Caesar thought fit to let the triumph fall, and pursued the consulship. Entering the town and coming forward immediately, he had recourse to a piece of state policy by which everybody was deceived but Cato. This was the reconciling of Crassus and Pompey, the two men who then were most powerful in Rome. There had been a quarrel between them, which he now succeeded in making up, and by this means strengthened himself by the united power of both, and so under the cover of an action which carried all the appearance of a piece of kindness and good- nature, caused what was in effect a revolution in the government. For it was not the quarrel between Pompey and Caesar, as most men imagine, which was the origin of the civil wars, but their union, their conspiring together at first to subvert the aristocracy, and so quarrelling afterwards between themselves. Cato, who often foretold what the consequence of this alliance would be, had then the character of a sullen, interfering man, but in the end the reputation of a wise but unsuccessful counsellor. Thus Caesar, being doubly supported by the interests of Crassus and Pompey, was promoted to the consulship, and triumphantly proclaimed with Calpurnius Bibulus. When he entered on his office he brought in bills which would have been preferred with better grace by the most audacious of the tribunes than by a consul, in which he proposed the plantation of colonies and the division of lands, simply to please the commonalty. The best and most honourable of the senators opposed it, upon which, as he had long wished for nothing more than for such a colourable pretext, he loudly protested how much it was against his will to be driven to seek support from the people, and how the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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senate’s insulting and harsh conduct left no other course possible for him than to devote himself henceforth to the popular cause and interest. And so he hurried out of the senate, and presenting himself to the people, and there placing Crassus and Pompey, one on each side of him, he asked them whether they consented to the bills he had proposed. They owned their assent, upon which he desired them to assist him against those who had threatened to oppose him with their swords. They engaged they would, and Pompey added further, that he would meet their swords with a sword and buckler too. These words the nobles much resented, as neither suitable to his own dignity, nor becoming the reverence due to the senate, but resembling rather the vehemence of a boy or the fury of a madman. But the people were pleased with it. In order to get a yet firmer hold upon Pompey, Caesar having a daughter, Julia, who had been before contracted to Servilius Caepio, now betrothed her to Pompey, and told Servilius he should have Pompey’s daughter, who was not unengaged either, but promised to Sylla’s son, Faustus. A little time after, Caesar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and got Piso made consul for the year following. Cato exclaimed loudly against this, and protested, with a great deal of warmth, that it was intolerable the government should be prostituted by marriages, and that they should advance one another to the commands of armies, provinces, and other great posts, by means of women. Bibulus, Caesar’s colleague, finding it was to no purpose to oppose his bills, but that he was in danger of being murdered in the forum, as also was Cato, confined himself to his house, and there let the remaining part of his consulship expire. Pompey, when he was married, at once filled the forum with soldiers, and gave the people his help in passing the new laws, and secured Caesar the government of all Gaul, both on this and the other side of the Alps, together with Illyricum, and the command of four legions for five years. Cato made some attempts against these proceedings, but was seized and led off on the way to prison by Caesar, who expected that he would appeal to the tribunes. But when he saw that Cato went along without speaking a word, and not only the nobility were indignant, but the people also, out of respect for Cato’s virtue, were following in silence, and with dejected looks, he himself privately desired one of the tribunes to rescue Cato. As for the other senators, some few of them attended the house, the rest, being disgusted, absented themselves. Hence Considius, a very old man, took occasion one day to tell Caesar that the senators did not meet because they were afraid of his soldiers. Caesar asked, “Why don’t you, then, out of the same fear, keep at home?” To which Considius replied, that age was his guard against fear, and that the small remains of his life were not worth much caution. But the most disgraceful thing that was done in Caesar’s consulship was his assisting to gain the tribuneship for the same Clodius who had made the attempt on his wife’s chastity and intruded upon the secret vigils. He was elected on purpose to effect Cicero’s downfall; nor did Caesar leave the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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city to join his army till they two had overpowered Cicero and driven him out of Italy. Thus far have we followed Caesar’s actions before the wars of Gaul. After this, he seems to begin his course afresh, and to enter upon a new life and scene of action. And the period of those wars which he now fought, and those many expeditions in which he subdued Gaul, showed him to be a soldier and general not in the least inferior to any of the greatest and most admired commanders who had ever appeared at the head of armies. For if we compare him with the Fabii, the Metelli, the Scipios, and with those who were his contemporaries, or not long before him, Sylla, Marius, the Luculli, or even Pompey himself, whose glory, it may be said, went up at that time to heaven for every excellence in war, we shall find Caesar’s actions to have surpassed them all. One he may be held to have outdone in consideration of the difficulty of the country in which he fought, another in the extent of territory which he conquered; some, in the number and strength of the enemy whom he defeated; one man, because of the wildness and perfidiousness of the tribes whose good-will he conciliated, another in his humanity and clemency to those he overpowered; others, again, in his gifts and kindnesses to his soldiers; all alike in the number of the battles which he fought and the enemies whom he killed. For he had not pursued the wars in Gaul full ten years when he had taken by storm above eight hundred towns, subdued three hundred states, and of the three millions of men, who made up the gross sum of those with whom at several times he engaged, he had killed one million and taken captive a second. He was so much master of the good-will and hearty service of his soldiers that those who in other expeditions were but ordinary men displayed a courage past defeating or withstanding when they went upon any danger where Caesar’s glory was concerned. Such a one was Acilius, who, in the sea-fight before , had his right hand struck off with a sword, yet did not quit his buckler out of his left, but struck the enemies in the face with it, till he drove them off and made himself master of the vessel. Such another was Cassius Scaeva, who, in a battle near Dyrrhachium, had one of his eyes shot out with an arrow, his shoulder pierced with one javelin, and his thigh with another; and having received one hundred and thirty darts upon his target, called to the enemy, as though he would surrender himself. But when two of them came up to him, he cut off the shoulder of one with a sword, and by a blow over the face forced the other to retire, and so with the assistance of his friends, who now came up, made his escape. Again, in Britain, when some of the foremost officers had accidentally got into a morass full of water, and there were assaulted by the enemy, a common soldier, whilst Caesar stood and looked on, threw himself in the midst of them, and after many signal demonstrations of his valour, rescued the officers and beat off the barbarians. He himself, in the end, took to the water, and with much difficulty, partly by swimming, partly by wading, passed it, but in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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passage lost his shield. Caesar and his officers saw it and admired, and went to meet him with joy and acclamation. But the soldier, much dejected and in tears, threw himself down at Caesar’s feet and begged his pardon for having let go his buckler. Another time in Africa, Scipio having taken a ship of Caesar’s in which Granius Petro, lately appointed quaestor, was sailing, gave the other passengers as free prize to his soldiers, but thought fit to offer the quaestor his life. But he said it was not usual for Caesar’s soldiers to take but give mercy, and having said so, fell upon his sword and killed himself. This love of honour and passion for distinction were inspired into them and cherished in them by Caesar himself, who, by his unsparing distribution of money and honours, showed them that he did not heap up wealth from the wars for his own luxury, or the gratifying his private pleasures, but that all he received was but a public fund laid by the reward and encouragement of valour, and that he looked upon all he gave to deserving soldiers as so much increase to his own riches. Added to this also, there was no danger to which he did not willingly expose himself, no labour from which he pleaded an exemption. His contempt of danger was not so much wondered at by his soldiers because they knew how much he coveted honour. But his enduring so much hardship, which he did to all appearance beyond his natural strength, very much astonished them. For he was a spare man, had a soft and white skin, was distempered in the head and subject to an epilepsy, which, it is said, first seized him at Corduba. But he did not make the weakness of his constitution a pretext for his ease, but rather used war as the best physic against his indispositions; whilst, by indefatigable journeys, coarse diet, frequent lodging in the field, and continual laborious exercise, he struggled with his diseases and fortified his body against all attacks. He slept generally in his chariots or litters, employing even his rest in pursuit of action. In the day he was thus carried to the forts, garrisons, and camps, one servant sitting with him, who used to write down what he dictated as he went, and a soldier attending behind him with his sword drawn. He drove so rapidly that when he first left Rome he arrived at the river Rhone within eight days. He had been an expert rider from his childhood; for it was usual with him to sit with his hands joined together behind his back, and so to put his horse to its full speed. And in this war he disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from on horseback, and to give directions to two who took notes at the same time or, as Oppius says, to more. And it is thought that he was the first who contrived means for communicating with friends by cipher, when either press of business, or the large extent of the city, left him no time for a personal conference about matters that required despatch. How little nice he was in his diet may be seen in the following instance. When at the table of Valerius Leo, who entertained him at supper at Milan, a dish of asparagus was put before him on which his host instead of oil had poured HDT WHAT? INDEX

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sweet ointment, Caesar partook of it without any disgust, and reprimanded his friends for finding fault with it. “For it was enough,” said he, “not to eat what you did not like; but he who reflects on another man’s want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself.” Another time upon the road he was driven by a storm into a poor man’s cottage, where he found but one room, and that such as would afford but a mean reception to a single person, and therefore told his companions places of honour should be given up to the greater men, and necessary accommodations to the weaker, and accordingly ordered that Oppius, who was in bad health, should lodge within, whilst he and the rest slept under a shed at the door. His first war in Gaul was against the Helvetians and Tigurini, who having burnt their own towns, twelve in number, and four hundred villages, would have marched forward through that part of Gaul which was included in the , as the Cimbrians and Teutons formerly had done. Nor were they inferior to these in courage; and in numbers they were equal, being in all three hundred thousand, of which one hundred and ninety thousand were fighting men. Caesar did not engage the Tigurini in person, but Labienus, under his directions, routed them near the rivet Arar. The Helvetians surprised Caesar, and unexpectedly set upon him as he was conducting his army to a confederate town. He succeeded, however, in making his retreat into a strong position, where, when he had mustered and marshalled his men, his horse was brought to him; upon which he said, “When I have won the battle, I will use my horse for the chase, but at present let us go against the enemy,” and accordingly charged them on foot. After a long and severe combat, he drove the main army out of the field, but found the hardest work at their carriages and ramparts, where not only the men stood and fought, but the women also and children defended themselves till they were cut to pieces; insomuch that the fight was scarcely ended till midnight. This action, glorious in itself, Caesar crowned with another yet more noble, by gathering in a body all the barbarians that had escaped out of the battle, above one hundred thousand in number, and obliging them to re- occupy the country which they had deserted and the cities which they had burnt. This he did for fear the Germans should pass it and possess themselves of the land whilst it lay uninhabited. His second war was in defence of the Gauls against the Germans, though some time before he had made Ariovistus, their king, recognized at Rome as an ally. But they were very insufferable neighbours to those under his government; and it was probable, when occasion offered, they would renounce the present arrangements, and march on to occupy Gaul. But finding his officers timorous, and especially those of the young nobility who came along with him in hopes of turning their campaigns with him into a means for their own pleasure or profit, he called them together, and advised them to march off, and not run the hazard of a battle against their inclinations, since they had such weak unmanly feelings; telling them that he would take only HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the tenth legion and march against the barbarians, whom he did not expect to find an enemy more formidable than the Cimbri, nor, he added, should they find him a general inferior to Marius. Upon this, the tenth legion deputed some of their body to pay him their acknowledgments and thanks, and the other legions blamed their officers, and all, with great vigour and zeal, followed him many days’ journey, till they encamped within two hundred furlongs of the enemy. Ariovistus’s courage to some extent was cooled upon their very approach; for never expecting the Romans would attack the Germans, whom he had thought it more likely they would not venture to withstand even in defence of their own subjects, he was the more surprised at conduct, and saw his army to be in consternation. They were still more discouraged by the prophecies of their holy women, who foretell the future by observing the eddies of rivers, and taking signs from the windings and noise of streams, and who now warned them not to engage before the next new moon appeared. Caesar having had intimation of this, and seeing the Germans lie still, thought it expedient to attack them whilst they were under these apprehensions, rather than sit still and wait their time. Accordingly he made his approaches to the strongholds and hills on which they lay encamped, and so galled and fretted them that at last they came down with great fury to engage. But he gained a signal victory, and pursued them for four hundred furlongs, as far as the Rhine; all which space was covered with spoils and bodies of the slain. Ariovistus made shift to pass the Rhine with the small remains of an army, for it is said the number of the slain amounted to eighty thousand. After this action, Caesar left his army at their winter quarters in the country of the Sequani, and, in order to attend to affairs at Rome, went into that part of Gaul which lies on the Po, and was part of his province; for the river Rubicon divides Gaul, which is on this side the Alps, from the rest of Italy. There he sat down and employed himself in courting people’s favour; great numbers coming to him continually, and always finding their requests answered; for he never failed to dismiss all with present pledges of his kindness in hand, and further hopes for the future. And during all this time of the war in Gaul, Pompey never observed how Caesar was on the one hand using the arms of Rome to effect his conquests, and on the other was gaining over and securing to himself the favour of the Romans with the wealth which those conquests obtained him. But when he heard that the Belgae, who were the most powerful of all the Gauls, and inhabited a third part of the country, were revolted, and had got together a great many thousand men in arms, he immediately set out and took his way hither with great expedition, and falling upon the enemy as they were ravaging the Gauls, his allies, he soon defeated and put to flight the largest and least scattered division of them. For though their numbers were great, yet they made but a slender defence, and the marshes and deep rivers were made passable to the Roman foot by the vast quantity of dead bodies. Of those who revolted, all the tribes that lived HDT WHAT? INDEX

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near the ocean came over without fighting, and he, therefore, led his army against the Nervii, the fiercest and most warlike people of all in those parts. These live in a country covered with continuous woods, and having lodged their children and property out of the way in the depth of the forest, fell upon Caesar with a body of sixty thousand men, before he was prepared for them, while he was making his encampment. They soon routed his cavalry, and having surrounded the twelfth and seventh legions, killed all the officers, and had not Caesar himself snatched up a buckler and forced his way through his own men to come up to the barbarians, or had not the tenth legion, when they saw him in danger, run in from the tops of the hills, where they lay, and broken through the enemy’s ranks to rescue him, in all probability not a Roman would have been saved. But now, under the influence of Caesar’s bold example, they fought a battle, as the phrase is, of more than human courage, and yet with their utmost efforts they were not able to drive the enemy out of the field, but cut them down fighting in their defence. For out of sixty thousand men, it is stated that not above five hundred survived the battle, and of four hundred of their senators not above three. When the Roman senate had received news of this, they voted sacrifices and festivals to the gods, to be strictly observed for the space of fifteen days, a longer space than ever was observed for any victory before. The danger to which they had been exposed by the joint outbreak of such a number of nations was felt to have been great; and the people’s fondness for Caesar gave additional lustre to successes achieved by him. He now, after settling everything in Gaul, came back again, and spent the winter by the Po, in order to carry on the designs he had in hand at Rome. All who were candidates for offices used his assistance, and were supplied with money from him to corrupt the people and buy their votes, in return of which, when they were chosen, they did all things to advance his power. But what was more considerable, the most eminent and powerful men in Rome in great numbers came to visit him at Lucca, Pompey, and Crassus, and Appius, the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos, the pro-consul of Spain, so that there were in the place at one time one hundred and twenty and more than two hundred senators. In deliberation here held, it was determined that Pompey and Crassus should be consuls again for the following year; that Caesar should have a fresh supply of money, and that his command should be renewed to him for five years more. It seemed very extravagant to all thinking men that those very persons who had received so much money from Caesar should persuade the senate to grant him more, as if he were in want. Though in truth it was not so much upon persuasion as compulsion that, with sorrow and groans for their own acts, they passed the measure. Cato was not present, for they had sent him seasonably out of the way into Cyprus; but Favonius, who was a zealous imitator of Cato, when he found he could do no good by opposing it, broke out of the house, and loudly declaimed against these proceedings to the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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people, but none gave him any hearing; some slighting him out of respect to Crassus and Pompey, and the greater part to gratify Caesar, on whom depended their hopes. After this, Caesar returned again to his forces in Gaul, when he found that country involved in a dangerous war, two strong nations of the Germans having lately passed the Rhine to conquer it; one of them called the Usipes. the other the Tenteritae. Of the war with the people, Caesar himself has given this account in his commentaries, that the barbarians, having sent ambassadors to treat with him, did, during the treaty, set upon him in his march, by which means with eight hundred men they routed five thousand of his horse, who did not suspect their coming; that afterwards they sent other ambassadors to renew the same fraudulent practices, whom he kept in custody, and led on his army against the barbarians, as judging it mere simplicity to keep faith with those who had so faithlessly broken the terms they had agreed to. But Tanusius states that when the senate decreed festivals and sacrifices for this victory, Cato declared it to be his opinion that Caesar ought to be given into the hands of the barbarians, that so the guilt which this breach of faith might otherwise bring upon the state might be expiated by transferring the curse on him, who was the occasion of it. Of those who passed the Rhine, there were four hundred thousand cut off; those few who escaped were sheltered by the Sugambri, a people of Germany. Caesar took hold of this pretence to invade the Germans, being at the same time ambitious of the honour of being the first man that should pass the Rhine with an army. He carried a bridge across it, though it was very wide, and the current at that particular point very full, strong, and violent, bringing down with its waters trunks of trees, and other lumber, which much shook and weakened the foundations of his bridge. But he drove great piles of wood into the bottom of the river above the passage, to catch and stop these as they floated down, and thus fixing his bridle upon the stream, successfully finished his bridge, which no one who saw could believe to be the work but of ten days. In the passage of his army over it he met with no opposition; the Suevi themselves, who are the most warlike people of all Germany, flying with their effects into the deepest and most densely wooded valleys. When he had burnt all the enemy’s country, and encouraged those who embraced the Roman interest, he went back into Gaul, after eighteen days’ stay in Germany. But his expedition into Britain was the most famous testimony of his courage. For he was the first who brought a navy into the western ocean, or who sailed into the Atlantic with an army to make war; and by invading an island, the reported extent of which had made its existence a matter of controversy among historians, many of whom questioned whether it were not a mere name and fiction, not a real place, he might be said to have carried the beyond the limits of the known world. He passed thither twice from that part of Gaul which lies over against it, and in several battles which he fought did more hurt to the enemy HDT WHAT? INDEX

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than service to himself, for the islanders were so miserably poor that they had nothing worth being plundered of. When he found himself unable to put such an end to the war as he wished, he was content to take hostages from the king, and to impose a tribute, and then quitted the island. At his arrival in Gaul, he found letters which lay ready to be conveyed over the water to him from his friends at Rome, announcing his daughter’s death, who died in labour of a child by Pompey. Caesar and Pompey both were much afflicted with her death, nor were their friends less disturbed, believing that the alliance was now broken which had hitherto kept the sickly commonwealth in peace, for the child also died within a few days after the mother. The people took the body of Julia, in spite of the opposition of the tribunes, and carried it into the field of Mars, and there her funeral rites were performed, and her remains are laid. Caesar’s army was now grown very numerous, so that he was forced to disperse them into various camps for their winter quarters, and he having gone himself to Italy as he used to do, in his absence a general outbreak throughout the whole of Gaul commenced, and large armies marched about the country, and attacked the Roman quarters, and attempted to make themselves masters of the forts where they lay. The greatest and strongest party of the rebels, under the command of Abriorix, cut off Cotta and Titurius with all their men, while a force sixty thousand strong besieged the legion under the command of Cicero, and had almost taken it by storm, the Roman soldiers being all wounded, and having quite spent themselves by a defence beyond their natural strength. But Caesar, who was at a great distance, having received the news, quickly got together seven thousand men, and hastened to relieve Cicero. The besiegers were aware of it, and went to meet him, with great confidence that they should easily overpower such a handful of men. Caesar, to increase their presumption, seemed to avoid fighting, and still marched off, till he found a place conveniently situated for a few to engage against many, where he encamped. He kept his soldiers from making any attack upon the enemy, and commanded them to raise the ramparts higher and barricade the gates, that by show of fear they might heighten the enemy’s contempt of them. Till at last they came without any order in great security to make an assault, when he issued forth and put them in flight with the loss of many men. This quieted the greater part of the commotions in these parts of Gaul, and Caesar, in the course of the winter, visited every part of the country, and with great vigilance took precautions against all innovations. For there were three legions now come to him to supply the place of the men he had lost, of which Pompey furnished him with two out of those under his command; the other was newly raised in the part of Gaul by the Po. But in a while the seeds of war, which had long since been secretly sown and scattered by the most powerful men in those warlike nations, broke forth into the greatest and most dangerous war that was in those parts, both as regards the number of men in HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the vigour of their youth who were gathered and armed from all quarters, the vast funds of money collected to maintain it, the strength of the towns, and the difficulty of the country where it carried on. It being winter, the rivers were frozen, the woods covered with snow, and the level country flooded, so that in some places the ways were lost through the depth of the snow; in others, the overflowing of marshes and streams made every kind of passage uncertain. All which difficulties made it seem impracticable for Caesar to make any attempt upon the insurgents. Many tribes had revolted together, the chief of them being the Arverni and Carnutini; the general who had the supreme command in war was Vergentorix, whose father the Gauls had put to death on suspicion of his aiming at absolute government. He having disposed his army in several bodies, and set officers over them, drew over to him all the country round about as far as those that lie upon the Arar, and having intelligence of the opposition which Caesar now experienced at Rome, thought to engage all Gaul in the war. Which if he had done a little later, when Caesar was taken up with the civil wars, Italy had been put into as great a terror as before it was by the Cimbri. But Caesar, who above all men was gifted with the faculty of making the right use of everything in war, and most especially of seizing the right moment, as soon as he heard of the revolt, returned immediately the same way he went, and showed the barbarians, by the quickness of his march in such a severe season, that an army was advancing against them which was invincible. For in the time that one would have thought it scarce credible that a courier or express should have come with a message from him, he himself appeared with all his army, ravaging the country, reducing their posts, subduing their towns, receiving into his protection those who declared for him. Till at last the Edui, who hitherto had styled themselves brethren to the Romans, and had been much honoured by them, declared against him, and joined the rebels, to the great discouragement of his army. Accordingly he removed thence, and passed the country of the Ligones, desiring to reach the territories of the Sequani, who were his friends, and who lay like a bulwark in front of Italy against the other tribes of Gaul. There the enemy came upon him, and surrounded him with many myriads, whom he also was eager to engage; and at last, after some time and with much slaughter, gained on the whole a complete victory; though at first he appears to have met with some reverse, and the Aruveni show you a small sword hanging up in a temple, which they say was taken from Caesar. Caesar saw this afterwards himself, and smiled, and when his friends advised it should be taken down, would not permit it, because he looked upon it as consecrated. After the defeat, a great part of those who had escaped fled with their king into a town called Alesia, which Caesar besieged, though the height of the walls, and number of those who defended them, made it appear impregnable; and meantime, from without the walls, he was assailed by a greater danger than HDT WHAT? INDEX

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can be expressed. For the choice men of Gaul, picked out of each nation, and well armed, came to relieve Alesia, to the number of three hundred thousand; nor were there in the town less than one hundred and seventy thousand. So that Caesar being shut up betwixt two such forces, was compelled to protect himself by two walls, one towards the town, the other against the relieving army, as knowing if these forces should join, his affairs would be entirely ruined. The danger that he underwent before Alesia justly gained him great honour on many accounts, and gave him an opportunity of showing greater instances of his valour and conduct than any other contest had done. One wonders much how he should be able to engage and defeat so many thousands of men without the town, and not be perceived by those within, but yet more, that the Romans themselves, who guarded their wall which was next to the town, should be strangers to it. For even they knew nothing of the victory, till they heard the cries of the men and lamentations of the women who were in the town, and had from thence seen the Romans at a distance carrying into their camp a great quantity of bucklers, adorned with gold and silver, many breastplates stained with blood, besides cups and tents made in the Gallic fashion. So soon did so vast an army dissolve and vanish like a ghost or dream, the greatest part of them being killed upon the spot. Those who were in Alesia, having given themselves and Caesar much trouble, surrendered at last; and Vergentorix, who was the chief spring of all the war, putting his best armour on, and adorning his horse, rode out of the gates, and made a turn about Caesar as he was sitting, then quitting his horse, threw off his armour, and remained quietly sitting at Caesar’s feet until he was led away to be reserved for the triumph. Caesar had long ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as had Pompey, for that matter, upon his. For Crassus, the fear of whom had hitherto kept them in peace, having now been killed in Parthia, if the one of them wished to make himself the greatest man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other; and if he again wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing for it but to be beforehand with him whom he feared. Pompey had not been long under any such apprehensions, having till lately despised Caesar, as thinking it no difficult matter to put down him whom he himself had advanced. But Caesar had entertained this design from the beginning against his rivals, and had retired, like an expert wrestler, to prepare himself apart for the combat. Making the his exercise-ground, he had at once improved the strength of his soldiery, and had heightened his own glory by his great actions, so that he was looked on as one who might challenge comparison with Pompey. Nor did he let go any of those advantages which were now given him both by Pompey himself and the times, and the ill-government of Rome, where all who were candidates for offices publicly gave money, and without any shame bribed the people, who, having received their pay, did not contend for their benefactors with their bare suffrages, but with bows, swords, and slings. So that after having many times HDT WHAT? INDEX

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stained the place of election with blood of men killed upon the spot, they left the city at last without a government at all, to be carried about like a ship without a pilot to steer her; while all who had any wisdom could only be thankful if a course of such wild and stormy disorder and madness might end no worse than in a monarchy. Some were so bold as to declare openly that the government was incurable but by a monarchy, and that they ought to take that remedy from the hands of the gentlest physician, meaning Pompey, who, though in words he pretended to decline it, yet in reality made his utmost efforts to be declared dictator. Cato, perceiving his design, prevailed with the senate to make him sole consul, that with the offer of a more legal sort of monarchy he might be withheld from demanding the dictatorship. They over and above voted him the continuance of his provinces, for he had two, Spain and all Africa, which he governed by his lieutenants, and maintained armies under him, at the yearly charge of a thousand talents out of the public treasury. Upon this Caesar also sent and petitioned for the consulship and the continuance of his provinces. Pompey at first did not stir in it, but Marcellus and Lentulus opposed it, who had always hated Caesar, and now did everything, whether fit or unfit, which might disgrace and affront him. For they took away the privilege of Roman citizens from the people of New Comum, who were a colony that Caesar had lately planted in Gaul, and Marcellus, who was then consul, ordered one of the senators of that town, then at Rome, to be whipped, and told him he laid that mark upon him to signify he was no citizen of Rome, bidding him, when he went back again, to show it to Caesar. After Marcellus’s consulship, Caesar began to lavish gifts upon all the public men out of the riches he had taken from the Gauls; discharged Curio, the tribune, from his great debts; gave Paulus, then consul, fifteen hundred talents, with which he built the noble court of justice adjoining the forum, to supply the place of that called the Fulvian. Pompey, alarmed at these preparations, now openly took steps, both by himself and his friends, to have a successor appointed in Caesar’s room, and sent to demand back the soldiers whom he had lent him to carry on the wars in Gaul. Caesar returned them, and made each soldier a present of two hundred and fifty drachmas. The officer who brought them home to Pompey spread amongst the people no very fair or favourable report of Caesar, and flattered Pompey himself with false suggestions that he was wished for by Caesar’s army; and though his affairs here were in some embarrassment through the envy of some, and the ill state of the government, yet there the army was at his command, and if they once crossed into Italy would presently declare for him; so weary were they of Caesar’s endless expeditions, and so suspicious of his designs for a monarchy. Upon this Pompey grew presumptuous, and neglected all warlike preparations as fearing no danger, and used no other means against him than mere speeches and votes, for which Caesar cared nothing. And one of his HDT WHAT? INDEX

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captains, it is said, who was sent by him to Rome, standing before the senate-house one day, and being told that the senate would not give Caesar longer time in his government, clapped his hand on the hilt of his sword and said, “But this shall.” Yet the demands which Caesar made had the fairest colours of equity imaginable. For he proposed to lay down his arms, and that Pompey should do the same, and both together should become private men, and each expect a reward of his services from the public. For that those who proposed to disarm him, and at the same time to confirm Pompey in all the power he held, were simply establishing the one in the tyranny which they accused the other of aiming at. When Curio made these proposals to the people in Caesar’s name, he was loudly applauded, and some threw garlands towards him, and dismissed him as they do successful wrestlers, crowned with flowers. Antony, being tribune, produced a letter sent from Caesar on this occasion, and read it though the consuls did what they could to oppose it. But Scipio, Pompey’s father- in-law, proposed in the senate, that if Caesar did not lay down his arms within such a time he should be voted an enemy; and the consuls putting it to the question, whether Pompey should dismiss his soldiers, and again, whether Caesar should disband his, very few assented to the first, but almost all to the latter. But Antony proposing again, that both should lay down their commissions, all but a very few agreed to it. Scipio was upon this very violent, and Lentulus, the consul, cried aloud, that they had need of arms, and not of suffrages, against a robber; so that the senators for the present adjourned, and appeared in mourning as a mark of their grief for the dissension. Afterwards there came other letters from Caesar, which seemed yet more moderate, for he proposed to quit everything else, and only to retain Gaul within the Alps, Illyricum, and two legions, till he should stand a second time for consul. Cicero, the orator, who was lately returned from Cilicia, endeavoured to reconcile differences, and softened Pompey, who was willing to comply in other things, but not to allow him the soldiers. At last Cicero used his persuasions with Caesar’s friends to accept of the provinces and six thousand soldiers only, and so to make up the quarrel. And Pompey was inclined to give way to this, but Lentulus, the consul, would not hearken to it, but drove Antony and Curio out of the senate-house with insults, by which he afforded Caesar the most plausible pretence that could be, and one which he could readily use to inflame the soldiers, by showing them two persons of such repute and authority who were forced to escape in a hired carriage in the dress of slaves. For so they were glad to disguise themselves when they fled out of Rome. There were not about him at that time above three hundred horse and five thousand foot; for the rest of his army, which was left behind the Alps, was to be brought after him by officers who had received orders for that purpose. But he thought the first motion towards the design which he had on foot did not require large forces at present, and that what was wanted was to make HDT WHAT? INDEX

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this first step suddenly, and so to astound his enemies with the boldness of it; as it would be easier, he thought, to throw them into consternation by doing what they never anticipated than fairly to conquer them, if he had alarmed them by his preparations. And therefore he commanded his captains and other officers to go only with their swords in their hands, without any other arms, and make themselves masters of Ariminum, a large city of Gaul, with as little disturbance and bloodshed as possible. He committed the care of these forces to Hortensius, and himself spent the day in public as a stander-by and spectator of the gladiators, who exercised before him. A little before night he attended to his person, and then went into the hall, and conversed for some time with those be had invited to supper, till it began to grow dusk, when he rose from table and made his excuses to the company, begging them to stay till he came back, having already given private directions to a few immediate friends that they should follow him, not all the same way, but some one way, some another. He himself got into one of the hired carriages, and drove at first another way, but presently turned towards Ariminum. When he came to the river Rubicon, which parts Gaul within the Alps from the rest of Italy, his thoughts began to work, now he was just entering upon the danger, and he wavered much in his mind when he considered the greatness of the enterprise into which he was throwing himself. He checked his course and ordered a halt, while he revolved with himself, and often changed his opinion one way and the other, without speaking a word. This was when his purposes fluctuated most; presently he also discussed the matter with his friends who were about him (of which number Asinius Pollio was one), computing how many calamities his passing that river would bring upon mankind, and what a relation of it would be transmitted to posterity. At last, in a sort of passion, casting aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what might come, and using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, “The die is cast,” with these words he took the river. Once over, he used all expedition possible, and before it was day reached Ariminum and took it. It is said that the night before he passed the river he had an impious dream, that he was unnaturally familiar with his own mother. As soon as Ariminum was taken, wide gates, so to say, were thrown open, to let in war upon every land alike and sea, and with the limits of the province, the boundaries of the laws were transgressed. Nor would one have thought that, as at other times, the mere men and women fled from one town of Italy to another in their consternation, but that the very towns themselves left their sites and fled for succour to each other. The city of Rome was overrun, as it were, with a deluge, by the conflux of people flying in from all the neighbouring places. Magistrates could not longer govern, nor the eloquence of any orator quiet it; it was all but suffering shipwreck by the violence of its own tempestuous agitation. The most vehement contrary passions and impulses were at work everywhere. Nor did HDT WHAT? INDEX

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those who rejoiced at the prospect of the change altogether conceal their feelings, but when they met, as in so great a city they frequently must, with the alarmed and dejected of the other party, they provoked quarrels by their bold expressions of confidence in the event. Pompey, sufficiently disturbed of himself, was yet more perplexed by the clamours of others; some telling him that he justly suffered for having armed Caesar against himself and the government; others blaming him for permitting Caesar to be insolently used by Lentulus, when he made such ample concessions, and offered such reasonable proposals towards an accommodation. Favonius bade him now stamp upon the ground; for once talking big in the senate, he desired them not to trouble themselves about making any preparations for the war, for that he himself, with one stamp of his foot, would fill all Italy with soldiers. Yet still Pompey at that time had more forces than Caesar; but he was not permitted to pursue his own thoughts, but, being continually disturbed with false reports and alarms, as if the enemy was close upon him and carrying all before him, he gave way and let himself be borne down by the general cry. He put forth an edict declaring the city to be in a state of anarchy, and left it with orders that the senate should follow him, and that no one should stay behind who did not prefer tyranny to their country and liberty. The consuls at once fled, without making even the usual sacrifices; so did most of the senators, carrying off their own goods in as much haste as if they had been robbing their neighbours. Some, who had formerly much favoured Caesar’s cause, in the prevailing alarm quitted their own sentiments, and without any prospect of good to themselves were carried along by the common stream. It was a melancholy thing to see the city tossed in these tumults, like a ship given up by her pilots, and left to run, as chance guides her, upon any rock in her way. Yet, in spite of their sad condition people still esteemed the place of their exile to be their country for Pompey’s sake, and fled from Rome, as if it had been Caesar’s camp. Labienus even, who had been one of Caesar’s nearest friends, and his lieutenant, and who had fought by him zealously in the Gallic wars, now deserted him, and went over to Pompey. Caesar sent all his money and equipage after him, and then sat down before Corfinium, which was garrisoned with thirty cohorts under the command of Domitius. He, in despair of maintaining the defence, requested a physician, whom he had among his attendants, to give him poison; and taking the dose, drank it, in hopes of being despatched by it. But soon after, when he was told that Caesar showed the utmost clemency towards those he took prisoners, he lamented his misfortune, and blamed the hastiness of his resolution. His physician consoled him by informing him that he had taken a sleeping draught, not a poison; upon which, much rejoiced, and rising from his bed, he went presently to Caesar and gave him the pledge of his hand, yet afterwards again went over to Pompey. The report of these actions at Rome quieted those who were there, and some who had fled thence returned. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Caesar took into his army Domitius’s soldiers, as he did all those whom he found in any town enlisted for Pompey’s service. Being now strong and formidable enough, he advanced against Pompey himself, who did not stay to receive him, but fled to Brundusium, having sent the consuls before with a body of troops to Dyrrhachium. Soon after, upon Caesar’s approach, he set to sea, as shall be more particularly related in his Life. Caesar would have immediately pursued him, but wanted shipping, and therefore went back to Rome, having made himself master of all Italy without bloodshed in the space of sixty days. When he came thither, he found the city more quiet than he expected, and many senators present, to whom he addressed himself with courtesy and deference, desiring them to send to Pompey about any reasonable accommodation towards a peace. But nobody complied with this proposal; whether out of fear of Pompey, whom they had deserted, or that they thought Caesar did not mean what he said, but thought it his interest to talk plausibly. Afterwards, when Metellus, the tribune, would have hindered him from taking money out of the public treasure, and adduced some laws against it, Caesar replied that arms and laws had each their own time; “If what I do displeases you, leave the place; war allows no free talking. When I have laid down my arms, and made peace, come back and make what speeches you please. And this,” he added, “I tell you in diminution of my own just right, as indeed you and all others who have appeared against me and are now in my power may be treated as I please.” Having said this to Metellus, he went to the doors of the treasury, and the keys being not to be found, sent for smiths to force them open. Metellus again making resistance and some encouraging him in it, Caesar, in a louder tone, told him he would put him to death if he gave him any further disturbance. “And this,” said he, “you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do.” These words made Metellus withdraw for fear, and obtained speedy execution henceforth for all orders that Caesar gave for procuring necessaries for the war. He was now proceeding to Spain, with the determination of first crushing Afranius and Varro, Pompey’s lieutenants, and making himself master of the armies and provinces under them, that he might then more securely advance against Pompey, when he had no enemy left behind him. In this expedition his person was often in danger from ambuscades, and his army by want of provisions, yet he did not desist from pursuing the enemy, provoking them to fight, and hemming them with his fortifications, till by main force he made himself master of their camps and their forces. Only the generals got off, and fled to Pompey. When Caesar came back to Rome, Piso, his father-in-law, advised him to send men to Pompey to treat of a peace; but Isauricus, to ingratiate himself with Caesar, spoke against it. After this, being created dictator by the senate, he called home the exiles, and gave back their rights as citizens to the children of those who had suffered under Sylla; he relieved the debtors by an act remitting some part of the interest on their debts, and passed HDT WHAT? INDEX

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some other measures of the same sort, but not many. For within eleven days he resigned his dictatorship, and having declared himself consul, with Servilius Isauricus, hastened again to the war. He marched so fast that he left all his army behind him, except six hundred chosen horse and five legions, with which he put to sea in the very middle of winter, about the beginning of the month of January (which corresponds pretty nearly with the Athenian month Posideon), and having passed the Ionian Sea, took Oricum and Apollonia, and then sent back the ships to Brundusium, to bring over the soldiers who were left behind in the march. They, while yet on the march, their bodies now no longer in the full vigour, and they themselves weary with such a multitude of wars, could not but exclaim against Caesar, “When at last, and where, will this Caesar let us be quiet? He carries us from place to place, and uses us as if we were not to be worn out, and had no sense of labour. Even our iron itself is spent by blows, and we ought to have some pity on our bucklers, and breastplates, which have been used so long. Our wounds, if nothing else, should make him see that we are mortal men whom he commands, subject to the same pains and sufferings as other human beings. The very gods themselves cannot force the winter season, or hinder the storms in their time; yet he pushes forward, as if he were not pursuing, but flying from an enemy.” So they talked as they marched leisurely towards Brundusium. But when they came thither, and found Caesar gone off before them, their feelings changed, and they blamed themselves as traitors to their general. They now railed at their officers for marching so slowly, and placing themselves on the heights overlooking the sea towards Epirus, they kept watch to see if they could espy the vessels which were to transport them to Caesar. He in the meantime was posted in Apollonia, but had not an army with him able to fight the enemy, the forces from Brundusium being so long in coming, which put him to great suspense and embarrassment what to do. At last he resolved upon a most hazardous experiment, and embarked, without any one’s knowledge, in a boat of twelve oars, to cross over to Brundusium, though the sea was at that time covered with a vast fleet of the enemies. He got on board in the night-time, in the dress of a slave, and throwing himself down like a person of no consequence lay along at the bottom of the vessel. The river Anius was to carry them down to sea, and there used to blow a gentle gale every morning from the land, which made it calm at the mouth of the river, by driving the waves forward; but this night there had blown a strong wind from the sea, which overpowered that from the land, so that where the river met the influx of the seawater and the opposition of the waves it was extremely rough and angry; and the current was beaten back with such a violent swell that the master of the boat could not make good his passage, but ordered his sailors to tack about and return. Caesar, upon this, discovers himself, and taking the man by the hand, who was surprised to see him there, said, “Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his fortune in HDT WHAT? INDEX

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your boat.” The mariners, when they heard that, forgot the storm, and laying all their strength to their oars, did what they could to force their way down the river. But when it was to no purpose, and the vessel now took in much water, Caesar finding himself in such danger in the very mouth of the river, much against his will permitted the master to turn back. When he was come to land, his soldiers ran to him in a multitude, reproaching him for what he had done, and indignant that he should think himself not strong enough to get a victory by their sole assistance, but must disturb himself, and expose his life for those who were absent, as if he could not trust those who were with him. After this, Antony came over with the forces from Brundusium, which encouraged Caesar to give Pompey battle, though he was encamped very advantageously, and furnished with plenty of provisions both by sea and land, whilst he himself was at the beginning but ill supplied, and before the end was extremely pinched for want of necessaries, so that his soldiers were forced to dig up a kind of root which grew there, and tempering it with milk, to feed on it. Sometimes they made a kind of bread of it, and advancing up to the enemy’s outposts, would throw in these loaves, telling them, that as long as the earth produced such roots they would not give up blockading Pompey. But Pompey took what care he could that neither the loaves nor the words should reach his men, who were out of heart and despondent through terror at the fierceness and hardihood of their enemies, whom they looked upon as a sort of wild beasts. There were continual skirmishes about Pompey’s outworks, in all which Caesar had the better, except one, when his men were forced to fly in such a manner that he had like to have lost his camp. For Pompey made such a vigorous sally on them that not a man stood his ground; the trenches were filled with the slaughter, many fell upon their own ramparts and bulwarks, whither they were driven in flight by the enemy. Caesar met them and would have turned them back, but could not. When he went to lay hold of the ensigns, those who carried them threw them down, so that the enemy took thirty-two of them. He himself narrowly escaped; for taking hold of one of his soldiers, a big and strong man, that was flying by him, he bade him stand and face about; but the fellow, full of apprehensions from the danger he was in, laid hold of his sword, as if he would strike Caesar, but Caesar’s armour-bearer cut off his arm. Caesar’s affairs were so desperate at that time that when Pompey, either through over- cautiousness or his ill fortune, did not give the finishing stroke to that great success, but retreated after he had driven the routed enemy within their camp, Caesar, upon seeing his withdrawal, said to his friends, “The victory to-day had been on the enemies’ side if they had had a general who knew how to gain it.” When he was retired into his tent, he laid himself down to sleep, but spent that night as miserable as ever he did any, in perplexity and consideration with himself, coming to the conclusion that he had conducted the war amiss. For when he had HDT WHAT? INDEX

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a fertile country before him, and all the wealthy cities of Macedonia and Thessaly, he had neglected to carry the war thither, and had sat down by the seaside, where his enemies had such a powerful fleet, so that he was in fact rather besieged by the want of necessaries, than besieging others with his arms. Being thus distracted in his thoughts with the view of the difficulty and distress he was in, he raised his camp, with the intention of advancing towards Scipio, who lay in Macedonia; hoping either to entice Pompey into a country where he should fight without the advantage he now had of supplies from the sea, or to overpower Scipio if not assisted. This set all Pompey’s army and officers on fire to hasten and pursue Caesar, whom they concluded to be beaten and flying. But Pompey was afraid to hazard a battle on which so much depended, and being himself provided with all necessaries for any length of time, thought to tire out and waste the vigour of Caesar’s army, which could not last long. For the best part of his men, though they had great experience, and showed an irresistible courage in all engagements, yet by their frequent marches, changing their camps, attacking fortifications, and keeping long night-watches, were getting worn out and broken; they being now old, their bodies less fit for labour, and their courage, also, beginning to give way with the failure of their strength. Besides, it was said that an infectious disease, occasioned by their irregular diet, was prevailing in Caesar’s army, and what was of greatest moment, he was neither furnished with money nor provisions, so that in a little time he must needs fall of himself. For these reasons Pompey had no mind to fight him, but was thanked for it by none but Cato, who rejoiced at the prospect of sparing his fellow-citizens. For he, when he saw the dead bodies of those who had fallen in the last battle on Caesar’s side, to the number of a thousand, turned away, covered his face, and shed tears. But every one else upbraided Pompey for being reluctant to fight, and tried to goad him on by such nicknames as Agamemnon, and king of kings, as if he were in no hurry to lay down his sovereign authority, but was pleased to see so many commanders attending on him, and paying their attendance at his tent. Favonius, who affected Cato’s free way of speaking his mind, complained bitterly that they should eat no figs even this year at Tusculum, because of Pompey’s love of command. Afranius, who was lately returned out of Spain, and, on account of his ill success there, laboured under the suspicion of having been bribed to betray the army, asked why they did not fight this purchaser of provinces. Pompey was driven, against his own will, by this kind of language, into offering battle, and proceeded to follow Caesar. Caesar had found great difficulties in his march, for no country would supply him with provisions, his reputation being very much fallen since his late defeat. But after he took Gomphi, a town of Thessaly, he not only found provisions for his army, but physic too. For there they met with plenty of wine, which they took very freely, and heated with HDT WHAT? INDEX

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this, sporting and revelling on their march in bacchanalian fashion, they shook off the disease, and their whole constitution was relieved and changed into another habit. When the two armies were come into Pharsalia, and both encamped there, Pompey’s thoughts ran the same way as they had done before, against fighting, and the more because of some unlucky presages, and a vision he had in a dream. But those who were about him were so confident of success, that Domitius, and Spinther, and Scipio, as if they had already conquered, quarrelled which should succeed Caesar in the pontificate. And many sent to Rome to take houses fit to accommodate consuls and praetors, as being sure of entering upon those offices as soon as the battle was over. The cavalry especially were obstinate for fighting, being splendidly armed and bravely mounted, and valuing themselves upon the fine horses they kept, and upon their own handsome persons; as also upon the advantage of their numbers, for they were five thousand against one thousand of Caesar’s. Nor were the numbers of the infantry less disproportionate, there being forty-five thousand of Pompey’s against twenty-two thousand of the enemy. Caesar, collecting his soldiers together, told them that Corfinius was coming up to them with two legions, and that fifteen cohorts more under Calenus were posted at and Athens; he then asked him whether they would stay till these joined them, or would hazard the battle by themselves. They all cried out to him not to wait, but on the contrary to do whatever he could to bring about an engagement as soon as possible. When he sacrificed to the gods for the lustration of his army, upon the death of the first victim, the augur told him, within three days he should come to a decisive action. Caesar asked him whether he saw anything in the entrails which promised a happy event. “That,” said the priest, “you can best answer yourself; for the gods signify a great alteration from the present posture of affairs. If, therefore, you think yourself well off now, expect worse fortune; if unhappy, hope for better.” The night before the battle, as he walked the rounds about midnight, there was a light seen in the heavens, very bright and flaming, which seemed to pass over Caesar’s camp and fall into Pompey’s. And when Caesar’s soldiers came to relieve the watch in the morning, they perceived a panic disorder among the enemies. However, he did not expect to fight that day, but set about raising his camp with the intention of marching towards Scotussa. But when the tents were now taken down, his scouts rode up to him, and told him the enemy would give him battle. With this news he was extremely pleased, and having performed his devotions to the gods, set his army in battle array, dividing them into three bodies. Over the middlemost he placed Domitius Calvinus; Antony commanded the left wing, and he himself the right, being resolved to fight at the head of the tenth legion. But when he saw the enemy’s cavalry taking position against him, being struck with their fine appearance and their number, he gave private orders that six cohorts from the rear of the army HDT WHAT? INDEX

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should come and join him, whom he posted behind the right wing, and instructed them what they should do when the enemy’s horse came to charge. On the other side, Pompey commanded the right wing, Domitius the left, and Scipio, Pompey’s father-in-law, the centre. The whole weight of the cavalry was collected on the left wing, with the intent that they should outflank the right wing of the enemy, and rout that part where the general himself commanded. For they thought no phalanx of infantry could be solid enough to sustain such a shock, but that they must necessarily be broken and shattered all to pieces upon the onset of so immense a force of cavalry. When they were ready on both sides to give the signal for battle, Pompey commanded his foot, who were in the front, to stand their ground, and without breaking their order, receive, quietly, the enemy’s first attack, till they came within javelin’s cast. Caesar, in this respect, also, blames Pompey’s generalship, as if he had not been aware how the first encounter, when made with an impetus and upon the run, gives weight and force to the strokes, and fires the men’s spirits into a flame, which the general concurrence fans to full heat. He himself was just putting the troops into motion and advancing to the action, when he found one of his captains, a trusty and experienced soldier, encouraging his men to exert their utmost. Caesar called him by his name, and said, “What hopes, Caius Crassinius, and what grounds for encouragement?” Crassinius stretched out his hand, and cried in a loud voice, “We shall conquer nobly, Caesar; and I this day will deserve your praises, either alive or dead.” So he said, and was the first man to run in upon the enemy, followed by the hundred and twenty soldiers about him, and breaking through the first rank, still pressed on forwards with much slaughter of the enemy, till at last he was struck back by the wound of a sword, which went in at his mouth with such force that it came out at his neck behind. Whilst the foot was thus sharply engaged in the main battle, on the flank Pompey’s horse rode up confidently, and opened their ranks very wide, that they might surround the right wing of Caesar. But before they engaged, Caesar’s cohorts rushed out and attacked them, and did not dart their javelins at a distance, nor strike at the thighs and legs, as they usually did in close battle, but aimed at their faces. For thus Caesar had instructed them, in hopes that young gentlemen, who had not known much of battles and wounds, but came wearing their hair long, in the flower of their age and height of their beauty, would be more apprehensive of such blows, and not care for hazarding both a danger at present and a blemish for the future. And so it proved, for they were so far from bearing the stroke of the javelins, that they could not stand the sight of them, but turned about, and covered their faces to secure them. Once in disorder, presently they turned about to fly; and so most shamefully ruined all. For those who had beat them back at once outflanked the infantry, and falling on their rear, cut them to pieces. Pompey, who commanded the other wing of the army, when he saw HDT WHAT? INDEX

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his cavalry thus broken and flying, was no longer himself, nor did he now remember that he was Pompey the Great, but, like one whom some god had deprived of his senses, retired to his tent without speaking a word, and there sat to expect the event, till the whole army was routed and the enemy appeared upon the works which were thrown up before the camp, where they closely engaged with his men who were posted there to defend it. Then first he seemed to have recovered his senses, and uttering, it is said, only these words, “What, into the camp too?” he laid aside his general’s habit, and putting on such clothes as might best favour his flight, stole off. What fortune he met with afterwards, how he took shelter in Egypt, and was murdered there, we tell you in his Life. Caesar, when he came to view Pompey’s camp, and saw some of his opponents dead upon the ground, others dying, said, with a groan, “This they would have; they brought me to this necessity. I, Caius Caesar, after succeeding in so many wars, had been condemned had I dismissed my army.” These words, Pollio says, Caesar spoke in Latin at that time, and that he himself wrote them in Greek; adding, that those who were killed at the taking of the camp were most of them servants; and that not above six thousand soldiers fell. Caesar incorporated most of the foot whom he took prisoners with his own legions, and gave a free pardon to many of the distinguished persons, and amongst the rest to Brutus, who afterwards killed him. He did not immediately appear after the battle was over, which put Caesar, it is said, into great anxiety for him; nor was his pleasure less when he saw him present himself alive. There were many prodigies that foreshadowed this victory, but the most remarkable that we are told of was that at Tralles. In the temple of Victory stood Caesar’s statue. The ground on which it stood was naturally hard and solid, and the stone with which it was paved still harder; yet it is said that a palm-tree shot itself up near the pedestal of this statue. In the city of Padua, one Caius Cornelius, who had the character of a good augur, the fellow-citizen and acquaintance of , the historian, happened to be making some augural observations that very day when the battle was fought. And first, as Livy tells us, he pointed out the time of the fight, and said to those who were by him that just then the battle was begun and the men engaged. When he looked a second time, and observed the omens, he leaped up as if he had been inspired, and cried out, “Caesar, are victorious.” This much surprised the standers-by, but he took the garland which he had on from his head, and swore he would never wear it again till the event should give authority to his art. This Livy positively states for a truth. Caesar, as a memorial of his victory, gave the Thessalians their freedom, and then went in pursuit of Pompey. When he was come into Asia, to gratify Theopompus, the author of the collection of fables, he enfranchised the Cnidians, and remitted one-third of their tribute to all the people of the province of Asia. When he came to Alexandria, where Pompey was already murdered, he HDT WHAT? INDEX

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would not look upon Theodotus, who presented him with his head, but taking only his signet, shed tears. Those of Pompey’s friends who had been arrested by the King of Egypt, as they were wandering in those parts, he relieved, and offered them his own friendship. In his letter to his friends at Rome, he told them that the greatest and most signal pleasure his victory had given him was to be able continually to save the lives of fellow- citizens who had fought against him. As to the war in Egypt, some say it was at once dangerous and dishonourable, and noways necessary, but occasioned only by his passion for Cleopatra. Others blame the ministers of the king, and especially the eunuch Pothinus, who was the chief favourite and had lately killed Pompey, who had banished Cleopatra, and was now secretly plotting Caesar’s destruction (to prevent which, Caesar from that time began to sit up whole nights, under pretence of drinking, for the security of his person), while openly he was intolerable in his affronts to Caesar, both by his words and actions. For when Caesar’s soldiers had musty and unwholesome corn measured out to them, Pothinus told them they must be content with it, since they were fed at another’s cost. He ordered that his table should be served with wooden and earthen dishes, and said Caesar had carried off all the gold and silver plate, under pretence of arrears of debt. For the present king’s father owed Caesar one thousand seven hundred and fifty myriads of money. Caesar had formerly remitted to his children the rest, but thought fit to demand the thousand myriads at that time to maintain his army. Pothinus told him that he had better go now and attend to his other affairs of greater consequence, and that he should receive his money at another time with thanks. Caesar replied that he did not want Egyptians to be his counsellors, and soon after privately sent for Cleopatra from her retirement. She took a small boat, and one only of her confidants, Apollodorus, the Sicilian, along with her, and in the dusk of the evening landed near the palace. She was at a loss how to get in undiscovered, till she thought of putting herself into the coverlet of a bed and lying at length, whilst Apollodorus tied up the bedding and carried it on his back through the gates to Caesar’s apartment. Caesar was first captivated by this proof of Cleopatra’s bold wit, and was afterwards so overcome by the charm of her society that he made a reconciliation between her and her brother, on the condition that she should rule as his colleague in the kingdom. A festival was kept to celebrate this reconciliation, where Caesar’s barber, a busy listening fellow, whose excessive timidity made him inquisitive into everything, discovered that there was a plot carrying on against Caesar by Achillas, general of the king’s forces, and Pothinus, the eunuch. Caesar, upon the first intelligence of it, set a guard upon the hall where the feast was kept and killed Pothinus. Achillas escaped to the army, and raised a troublesome and embarrassing war against Caesar, which it was not easy for him to manage with his few soldiers against so powerful a city and so large an army. The first difficulty he met with was want of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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water, for the enemies had turned the canals. Another was, when the enemy endeavoured to cut off his communication by sea, he was forced to divert that danger by setting fire to his own ships, which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed the great library. A third was, when in an engagement near Pharos, he leaped from the mole into a small boat to assist his soldiers who were in danger, and when the Egyptians pressed him on every side, he threw himself into the sea, and with much difficulty swam off. This was the time when, according to the story, he had a number of manuscripts in his hand, which, though he was continually darted at, and forced to keep his head often under water, yet he did not let go, but held them up safe from wetting in one hand, whilst he swam with the other. His boat in the meantime, was quickly sunk. At last, the king having gone off to Achillas and his party, Caesar engaged and conquered them. Many fell in that battle, and the king himself was never seen after. Upon this, he left Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who soon after had a son by him, whom the Alexandrians called Caesarion, and then departed for Syria. Thence he passed to Asia, where he heard that Domitius was beaten by Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, and had fled out of Pontus with a handful of men; and that Pharnaces pursued the victory so eagerly, that though he was already master of Bithynia and Cappadocia, he had a further design of attempting the Lesser Armenia, and was inviting all the kings and tetrarchs there to rise. Caesar immediately marched against him with three legions, fought him near Zela, drove him out of Pontus, and totally defeated his army. When he gave Amantius, a friend of his at Rome, an account of this action, to express the promptness and rapidity of it he used three words, I came, saw, and conquered, which in Latin, having all the same cadence, carry with them a very suitable air of brevity. Hence he crossed into Italy, and came to Rome at the end of that year, for which he had been a second time chosen dictator, though that office had never before lasted a whole year, and was elected consul for the next. He was ill spoken of, because upon a mutiny of some soldiers, who killed Cosconius and Galba, who had been praetors, he gave them only the slight reprimand of calling them Citizens instead of Fellow-Soldiers, and afterwards assigned to each man a thousand drachmas, besides a share of lands in Italy. He was also reflected on for Dolabella’s extravagance, Amantius’s covetousness, Antony’s debauchery, and Corfinius’s profuseness, who pulled down Pompey’s house, and rebuilt it, as not magnificent enough; for the Romans were much displeased with all these. But Caesar, for the prosecution of his own scheme of government, though he knew their characters and disapproved them, was forced to make use of those who would serve him. After the battle of Pharsalia, Cato and Scipio fled into Africa, and there, with the assistance of King Juba, got together a considerable force, which Caesar resolved to engage. He accordingly passed into Sicily about the winter solstice, and to remove from his officers’ minds all hopes of delay there, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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encamped by the seashore, and as soon as ever he had a fair wind, put to sea with three thousand foot and a few horse. When he had landed them, he went back secretly, under some apprehensions for the larger part of his army, but met them upon the sea, and brought them all to the same camp. There he was informed that the enemies relied much upon an ancient oracle, that the family of the Scipios should be always victorious in Africa. There was in his army a man, otherwise mean and contemptible, but of the house of the Africani, and his name Scipio Sallutio. This man Caesar (whether in raillery to ridicule Scipio, who commanded the enemy, or seriously to bring over the omen to his side, it were hard to say), put at the head of his troops, as if he were general, in all the frequent battles which he was compelled to fight. For he was in such want both of victualling for his men and forage for his horses, that he was forced to feed the horses with seaweed, which he washed thoroughly to take off its saltness, and mixed with a little grass to give it a more agreeable taste, The Numidians, in great numbers, and well horsed, whenever he went, came up and commanded the country. Caesar’s cavalry, being one day unemployed, diverted themselves with seeing an African, who entertained them with dancing and at the same time played upon the pipe to admiration. They were so taken with this, that they alighted, and gave their horses to some boys, when on a sudden the enemy surrounded them, killed some, pursued the rest and fell in with them into their camp; and had not Caesar himself and Asinius Pollio come to their assistance, and put a stop to their flight, the war had been then at an end. In another engagement, also, the enemy had again the better, when Caesar, it is said, seized a standard-bearer, who was running away, by the neck, and forcing him to face about, said, “Look, that is the way to the enemy.” Scipio, flushed with this success at first, had a mind to come to one decisive action. He therefore left Afranius and Juba in two distinct bodies not far distant and marched himself towards Thapsus, where he proceeded to build a fortified camp above a lake, to serve as a centre-point for their operations, and also as a place of refuge. Whilst Scipio was thus employed, Caesar with incredible despatch made his way through thick woods, and a country supposed to be impassable, cut off one part of the enemy and attacked another in the front. Having routed these, he followed up his opportunity and the current of his good fortune, and on the first carried Afranius’s camp, and ravaged that of the Numidians, Juba, their king, being glad to save himself by flight; so that in a small part of a single day he made himself master of three camps, and killed fifty thousand of the enemy, with the loss only of fifty of his own men. This is the account some give of that fight. Others say he was not in the action, but that he was too far disordered his senses, when he was already beginning to shake under its influence, withdrew into a neighbouring fort where he reposed himself. Of the men of consular and praetorian dignity that were taken after the fight, several Caesar put to death, others anticipated him HDT WHAT? INDEX

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by killing themselves. Cato had undertaken to defend Utica, and for that reason was not in the battle. The desire which Caesar had to take him alive made him hasten thither; ....

September 2: At the age of 3, Caesarion (Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, acclaimed to the Egyptian people as a child not of a visiting Roman general but as a child of Amon-Re) was designated by his mother Cleopatra VII as her co-ruler over Egypt. (She would have no more of this little-brotherly love.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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43 BCE

At about this point Lucius Munatius Plancus was directed by the Roman senate to found, at what would become the city of Lyon, a town called .

Antipater the Idumaean granted financial support to the murderers of Julius Caesar, an act which brought chaos, and then was poisoned. Herod the Great, with the support of the , executed his father’s poisoner. When Antigonus attempted to seize the throne from his uncle Hyrcanus, Herod the Great defeated him (without, however, managing to capture and kill him) and then, to secure for himself a claim to the throne, took Hyrcanus’s teenage niece, Mariamne (known as Mariamne I), to wife. Inconveniently, he already had a wife, named Doris, and a three-year-old son, named Antipater III — and so he banished both of them.

(Over and above, or in between, pulling incestuous stunts like the above, Herod the Great would rebuild the Great Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. You can’t quite make it out on the coin above, due to rusting, but what is being depicted on the obverse side is this famous temple from the time of Jesus.)

August 19: Octavian (along with his cousin who was Julius Caesar’s nephew) assumed the post of suffect consul, with Octavian being recognized as having been adopted by Julius Caesar and taking the new name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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42 BCE

Herod the Great took the line, in presenting himself before Mark Antony and Octavian, that although his father had indeed helped Julius Caesar’s murderers, this had been done only under duress. Evidently they were sufficiently persuaded, or were willing to pretend that they were sufficiently persuaded, for they would appoint him tetrarch of Galilee. This would of course bring a potful of trouble, as many Jews still considered this family, recent converts and good friends of the Roman intrusives, despite the undeniable fact of the rebuilding of the holy temple in Jerusalem, to be what you might term fake Jews.

Yet more altercations involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: 1st Philippi battle, fought to a draw between Antony and incidentally Octavian, versus M. Junius Brutus and C. Cassius Longinus, and then the 2nd Philippi battle, fought by M. Antonius and Octavian Caesar versus M. Junius Brutus (C. Cassius Longinus having committed suicide) — restoring the Pax Romana. Death of M. Junius Brutus. (Dissension would soon break out between Octavian Caesar and Mark Antony, rupturing the Pax Romana.)

January 1: Gaius Iulius Cæsar was proclaimed as a god, on the basis of the great daylight comet that had been seen in the north for three to seven days in July 44 BCE during the games that Octavian Caesar had been holding in honor of his adopted father. By virtue of this declaration, of course, Octavian Caesar automatically became a divi filius, which is to say, a “god’s son.” ASTRONOMY

October 23: In a battle at Philippi, the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian destroyed the Romans proscribed for having assassinated Julius Caesar, and after this defeat C. Cassius Longinus committed suicide.

Horace had served as a staff officer (tribunus militum) for Brutus during this battle. He fled and, when an amnesty was declared, found that although his estate had been forfeited enough funds remained for him to purchase a lifetime sinecure as a scriba quaestorius at the Treasury. He would join a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus and get himself introduced to Maecenas, a friend and confidant of Augustus, who would become his patron and close friend while he devoted himself to his poetry. Maecenas would present him with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (our Tivoli), which upon his death he would bequeath to the emperor. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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32 BCE

Mark Antony divorced Octavia. There was a “war of words” between him and her brother Octavian Caesar. Octavian Caesar acquired and proclaimed in the Senate of Rome the contents of Mark Antony’s will, which had declared Caesarion as Julius Caesar’s lawful heir. The Senate, alarmed at this evidence of Mark Antony’s preferring the East over the West, his willingness to advance the interests of Cleopatra’s Egypt over those of Rome, declared war on Egypt and assigned Octavian Caesar the title of “” or leader of this war effort. Some of the senators, however, defected to Mark Antony. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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100 CE

The Romans denominated the island we know as Jersey as “Caesarea,” a name still used there in titles such as the Caesarean Tennis and Croquet Club. At high tide this island is about half the size of Santa Catalina off the coast of Orange County, California. However, this is a region of extremely high and strong tides, and at low tide the island is surrounded by such enormous flat beaches that the sea is hardly visible in any direction! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1593

Among Abraham Ortelius’s final works was an edition of the writings of Julius Caesar (C.I. CAESARIS OMNIA QUAE EXTANT, Leiden, Raphelingen).

William Camden had for some years been serving as the assistant headmaster of Westminster School, under Headmaster Dr. Edward Grant. At this point Dr. Grant withdrew and he was appointed as headmaster.

(He would serve in that capacity until 1597.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1599

Richard Barnfield’s THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM appeared, featuring the words “By W. Shakespeare” on the title-page. The volume contained 20 poems but only 5 had actually been authored by William Shakespeare, the bulk of the book being Barnfield’s own.

WE ARE CONFIDENT WE HAVE NO IDEA WHATEVER WHAT WILL SHAKESPEARE MIGHT HAVE LOOKED LIKE.

The Globe Theatre was built outside London, and the first play produced there was Julius Caesar, by a playwright who was named (or was presenting himself as) Shakespeare. The reception of Ben Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humour was not, however, as good as had been expected.

WE ARE CONFIDENT WE DO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT BEN JONSON LOOKED LIKE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1752

September 3-13: Nothing happened. No time passed. One instant it had been midnight of September 2d, a Wednesday, or, maybe, midnight of September 12, a Wednesday, and the next instant per the stipulations of “Chesterfield’s Act” it was September 13, a Thursday. Go figure. The British Isles had finally gone along with the rest of Europe dropping eleven days down the ol’ Star-Trek timewarp and converting over to the Gregorian or “New Style” calendar from the Julian, or “Old Style,” calendar. They did not, for instance, adjust the festival days on which the Quarter Days fell, and thus, both in 1751 and in 1753, Lady Day was ostensibly celebrated on March 25th.2 Would this mean that workers would get paid by their employers for 11 days on which they had not worked? –Maybe, maybe not. And would they have to pay rent on their accommodations to their landlords for those 11 days that never were? –Maybe, maybe not. The English, never a people to let anybody get away with anything, began to distinguish between Lady Day and Old Lady Day better to keep track of who owed what to whom. (Thus it is that even as recently as TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES, we are told of a “Lady Day” holiday that was followed shortly after by an “Old Lady Day” holiday — some of the English, obviously, were only reluctantly being dragged into the new calendar system.)3

Although there have been many popular reports of “Give Us Back Our Eleven Days” riots, this is an urban legend. The populace had significant cause for concern, but this concern was based in no sense upon any time- superstition. This calendar “reform” was in fact prejudicial to the poor, the marginal, in that it had shortened the quarter-year without reducing the payment due from tenants paying rent by the quarter, while depriving these tenants of eleven days’ earning power that they sorely needed in order to create the liquidity to pay that quarter’s rent. The obvious inequity of this resulted in the UK commercial accounting periods which, since medieval times, had conventionally ended on Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas, being made to last an additional eleven days. In the UK today, Lady Day is the record of this very necessary adjustment, and is why the end of the fiscal/financial year in the UK continues to be April 5th each year,

2. Quarter Days: In olden times the year was traditionally divided into four quarters, and one paid one’s rents, one worked on one’s temporary employment, etc., quarter by quarter more or less as a “temp” nowadays works hour by hour. The quarter days were March 25th, which was Lady Day, June 24th, which was Midsummers Day, September 29th, which was Michaelmas, and December 25th, which of course was Christmas Day. Lady Day was the celebration of the annunciation by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. 3.CALENDAR REFORM: Why do histories of events around 1582 for most of Europe, this year of 1752 for England and for British North America, and 1917 for Russia show pairs of conflicting dates? In 46BCE Julius Caesar instituted the Julian Calendar of 365 days to bring the back into adjustment, with a “leap year” every four years to take care of the quarter-day left over as, from a Ptolemaic perspective, the sun returned to its original coordinates in the sky. However, since a year actually is equal to 365.2422 days, this adjustment lacked sufficient precision. What was needed, but was not instituted until much later, was some further refinement of the Caesarian rule similar in effect to our present arrangement according to which every year whose number can be divided by four evenly is a leap year, unless it is exactly divisible by 100, and according to which those years which are divisible by 100 are not leap years unless they are exactly divisible by 400, when they become leap years again. (For similar reasons, societies such as China which operate according to a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar every 19th year indulge themselves in two of the month of August, one following hard upon the other.) For lack of such precision tinkering, by 1582 enough of an error had been allowed to accumulate that the new year was arriving a full ten days too early, which led Pope Gregory XIII (florut 1572CE-1585CE) to arbitrarily add ten days to the calendar. Such a reform by a Catholic pontiff did not play well in Protestant England, so it was not until 1752 that the English Parliament legislated an equivalent correction. This reform of the calendar as of 1752 made the conventional year more or less match the solar year, so that New Year’s Day was no longer to be celebrated on March 25th. (It was this calendar reform which made it unnecessary to use a double year notation such as “1751-52” for a date between January 1st and March 25th. In Henry Thoreau’s writings we see these old dates identified as “o.s.” standing for “Old Style.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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exactly eleven days after March 25th.

Approximately one American in five had emigrated from some country that had shifted in 1582 to the Gregorian calendar. For that reason we in the British colonies had been for some time utilizing both Julian and Gregorian calendars, a remarkable inconvenience. Refer to Robert Poole’s article on calendar reform in Britain (PAST AND PRESENT, 1996) for a dismissal of the urban legend that there were anti-Papist riots. For most people, in particular for merchants, the simplification and standardization was a welcome relief. Even in England there were no riots, and the urban legend that there were seems to stem from a misreading of a Hogarth engraving in which an election cudgelman is holding up a sign demanding “Give Us Back Our 11 Days.” Said Hogarth engraving was satiric. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1777

Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was to become the subject of James Boswell’s THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D., actually himself wrote a record of his own life, but in the presence of his servant Francis Barber he had destroyed this writing. When Boswell read to him an evaluation in the Critical Review in this year, placing Julius Caesar’s account of his actions in one category, Antoninus’s reflections on his life in a second category, and Huetius’s contexture of the times of his life in a third category, in contradistinction to all these “journalists, temporal and spiritual: Elias Ashmole, William Lilly, George Whitefield, John Wesley, and a thousand other old women and fanatic writers of memoirs and meditations” in a quite derogatory separate category, Johnson commented that few writers have “gained any reputation by recording their own actions.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1805

Publication of a volume that would wind up in Henry Thoreau’s personal library — due to its having been being part of his Concord college-preparatory education: Julius Caesar’s C. IVLII CAESARIS COMMENTARII DE BELLO GALLICO ET CIVILI ACCEDVNT LIBRI DE BELLO ALEXANDRINO AFRICANO ET HISPANIENSI E RECENSIONE FRANCISCI OVDENDORPII POST CELLARIVM ET MORVM DENVO CVRAVIT IER. IAC. OBERLINVS ARGENTORATENSIS INSTITVTO LITTER. FRANCISCO ADSCRIPTVS (Lipsiae 1805 in Libraria Weidmannia; Londini, apvd I. Payne et Mackinlay et W.H. Lynn). CAESAR’S COMMENTARII

If you remember, the two main point-of-view characters in the HBO series “Rome” were Lucius Vorenus and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Titus Pullo. These have been derived loosely from an actual battle incident recounted in Book 5:

T. Pulfio and L. Varenus were centurions of the 11th Legion (Legio XI). They were rivals for promotion to primus pilus, senior centurion of the legion. Caesar describes how in the heat of a battle with the Nervii the centurion T. Pulfio ventured forward from the fortifications in order to cast a javelin at short distance, was impaled on a spear and surrounded, and was unable to draw his sword. The centurion L. Varenus, following him from the fortifications, struck down one of the enemy and was forcing the others back when he slipped and fell. The two protected each other and eliminated some more of the Nervii as they retreated to the fortifications amid the roars of their watching legionaries. In the TV series the point-of-view character Lucius Vorenus is played by actor Kevin McKidd. He is depicted as the commanding officer of Titus Pullo, who is HDT WHAT? INDEX

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played by actor Ray Stevenson, and as pertaining to Legio XIII Gemina, the 13th, rather than to this Legio XI, the 11th.

In its first three minutes the TV series purports to portray this incident but the acting corresponds poorly to Caesar’s description — obviously the filming was not intended for viewing by 19th-Century 11-year-olds such as Thoreau who as part of their college preparation had actually translated this account from its original Latin: AS DEPICTED IN “ROME” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Caesar was brought north a third time by his slavemaster, this time by a new one, a man named Ingraham, and this time he made a bid for his freedom.

However, as he was hoofing along the road through Medford on his way toward Woburn MA, Ingraham caught up with him in a carriage and “bucked” him into the carriage to take him back to Boston harbor and confine him aboard the ship that was going to take them back to the South. As the carriage made its way back toward the Medford bridge across the Mystic River, however, they had to pass within hailing range of the smithy shop there, of Caesar’s friend Nathan Wait, so Caesar cried out for help as loudly as he could. Wait heard, and rushed out to attempt to intercept the carriage, but of course could not prevail. A few days later, however, Ingraham was back in Medford and let slip the whereabouts of his slave, and this information made its way to Wait. So the blacksmith rushed to the State House in Boston. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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With the governor’s assistance Caesar was rescued. Thus, although Ingraham would make several attempts through the Massachusetts courts to recover his alienated property, the citizens of Medford would forever be able to brag4 that theirs was the first town in New England to rescue a fugitive slave.

4. Refer for instance to Brooks, Charles. HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD. Boston MA: James A. Usher, 1855, page 438. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1828

Fall: This was the end of David Henry Thoreau’s period of instruction in Concord’s Town School in the center district under schoolmaster Edward Jarvis. Apparently at some point during this school term John Thoreau, Jr. and his 11-year-old brother David Henry were transferred by their parents from the public system to the Concord Academy at which the fees were $5.00 per student per quarter, to study not only Virgil, Caesar, , Marcus Tullius Cicero, and , but also botany. According to this new arrangement, the preceptor there, a recent Harvard College graduate named Phineas Allen, was to board at the Thoreau boardinghouse — presumably in lieu of cash tuition. David Henry would be attending this academy until 1833. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Since Thoreau’s own copy of Virgil, now in the Special Collections department of the Minneapolis Public Library, is signed “D.H. Thoreau, Hollis 20, Sept. 4th,” the copy of Virgil from which he studied at this point would likely have been not this volume but instead a school copy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1866

August: The Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway’s “Thoreau” began to appear in the Eclectic Magazine, LXVII (this would be concluded in the LXXIXth issue — where he would describe Henry Thoreau as, of all imaginable similes, a modern-day Julius Caesar): He did not care for people; his classmates seemed very remote. This reverie hung always about him, and not so loosely as the odd garments which the pious household care furnished. Thought had not yet awakened his countenance; it was serene, but rather dull, rather plodding. The lips were not yet firm; there was almost a look of smug satisfaction lurking round their corners. It is plain now that he was preparing to hold his future views with great setness, and personal appreciation of their importance. The nose was prominent, but its curve fell forward without firmness over the upper lip; and we remember him as looking very much like some Egyptian sculptures of faces, large- featured, but brooding, immobile, fixed in a mystic egotism. Yet his eyes were sometimes searching, as if he had dropped, or expected to find, something. It was the look of Nature’s own child learning to detect her way-side secrets; and those eyes have stocked his books with subtile traits of animate and inanimate creation which had escaped less patient observers. For he saw more upon the ground than anybody suspected to be there. His eyes slipped into every tuft of meadow or beach grass, and went winding in and out of the thickest undergrowth, like some slim, silent, cunning animal. They were amphibious besides, and slid under fishes’ eggs and into their nests at the pond’s bottom, to rifle all their contents. Mr. Emerson has noticed, that Thoreau could always find an Indian arrow-head in places that had been ploughed over and ransacked for years. “There is one,” he would say, kicking it up with his foot. In fact, his eyes seldom left the ground, even in his most earnest conversation with you, if you can call earnest a tone and manner that was very confident, as of an opinion that had formed from granitic sediment, but also very level and unflushed with feeling. The Sphinx might have become passionate and exalted as soon. In later years his chin and mouth grew firmer as his resolute and audacious opinions developed, the curves of the lips lost their flabbiness, the eyes twinkled with the latent humor of his criticisms of society. Still the countenance was unruffled: it seemed to lie deep, like a mountain tarn, with cool, still nature all around. There was not a line upon it expressive of ambition or discontent: the affectional emotions had never fretted at it. He went about, like a priest of Buddha who expects to arrive soon at the summit of a life of contemplation, where the divine absorbs the human. All his intellectual activity was of the spontaneous, open-air kind, which keeps the forehead smooth. His thoughts grew with all the rest of nature, and passively took HDT WHAT? INDEX

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their chance of summer and winter, pause and germination: no more forced than pine-cones; fragrant, but not perfumed, owing nothing to special efforts of art. His extremest and most grotesque opinion had never been under glass. It all grew like the bolls on forest-trees, and the deviations from stem-like or sweeping forms. No man was ever such a placid thinker. It was because his thinking was observation isolated from all the temptations of society, from the artificial exigencies of literature, from the conventional sequence. Its truthfulness was not logically attained, but insensibly imbibed, during wood. chopping, fishing, and scenting through the woods and fields. So that the smoothness and plumpness of a child were spread over his deepest places. His simple life, so free from the vexations that belong to the most ordinary provision for the day, and from the wear and tear of habits helped his countenance to preserve this complacency. He had instincts, but no habits; and they wore him no more than they do the beaver and the blue-jay. Among them we include his rare intuitive sensibility for moral truth and for the fitness of things. For, although he lived so closely to the ground, he could still say, “My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not knowledge, but sympathy with intelligence.” But this intuition came up, like grass in spring, with no effort that is traceable, or that registers itself anywhere except in the things grown. You would look in vain for the age of his thoughts upon his face. Now, it is no wonder that he kept himself aloof from us in college; for he was already living on some Walden Pond, where he had run up a temporary shanty in the depths of his reserve. He built it better afterwards, but no nearer to men. Did anyone ever tempt him down to Snow’s, with the offer of an unlimited molluscous entertainment? The naturalist was not yet enough awakened to lead him to ruin a midnight stomach for the sake of the constitution of an oyster. Who ever saw him sailing out of Willard’s long entry upon that airy smack which students not intended for the pulpit launched from port-sangarees? We are confident that he never discovered the back-parlor aperture through which our finite thirst communicated with its spiritual source. So that his observing faculty must, after all, be charged with limitations. We say, our thirst, but would not be understood to include those who were destined for the ministry, as no clergyman in the embryonic state was ever known to visit Willard’s. But Thoreau was always indisposed to call at the ordinary places for his spiritual refreshment; and he went farther than most persons when apparently he did not go so far. He soon discovered that all sectarian and denominational styles of thinking had their Willard within economical distance; but the respective taps did not suit his country palate. He was in his cups when he was out of doors, where his lips fastened to the far horizon, and he tossed off the whole costly vintage that mantled in the great circumference. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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But he had no animal spirits for our sport or mischief. We cannot recollect what became of him during the scenes of the Dunkin Rebellion [a student uprising]. He must have slipped off into some “cool retreat or mossy cell.” We are half inclined to suppose that the tumult startled him into some metamorphose, that corresponded to a yearning in him of some natural kind, whereby he secured a temporary evasion till peace was restored. He may also, in this interim of qualified humanity, have established an understanding with the mute cunning of nature, which appeared afterwards in his surprising recognition of the ways of squirrels, birds, and fishes. It is certainly quite as possible that man should take off his mind, and drop into the medium of animal intelligence, as that Swedenborg, Dr. Channing, and other spirits of just men made perfect, should strip off the senses and conditions of their sphere, to come dabbling about in the atmosphere of earth among men’s thoughts. However this may be, Thoreau disappeared while our young absurdity held its orgies, stripping shutters from the lower windows of the buildings, dismantling recitation rooms, greeting tutors and professors with a frenzied and groundless indignation which we symbolized by kindling the spoils of sacked premises upon the steps. It probably occurred to him that fools might rush in where angels were not in the habit of going. We recollect that he declined to accompany several fools of this description, who rushed late, all in a fine condition of contempt, with Corybantic gestures, into morning prayers, — a college exercise which we are confident was never attended by the angels. It is true he says, “Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones;” and a little after, in the same essay, “I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society.” But, in fact, there is nothing so conventional as the mischief of a boy who is grown large enough to light bonfires, and run up a bill for “special repairs,” and not yet large enough to include in such a bill his own disposition to “haze” his comrades and to have his fits of anarchy. Rebellion is “but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.” There was no conceit of superior tendencies and exclusive tastes which prevented him from coming into closer contact with individuals. But it was not shyness alone which restrained him, nor the reticence of an extremely modest temperament. For he was complacent; his reserve was always satisfactory to himself. Something in his still latent and brooding genius was sufficiently attractive to make his wit “home-keeping;” and it very early occurred to him, that he should not better his fortunes by familiarity with other minds. This complacency, which lay quite deep over his youthful features, was the key to that defect of sympathy which led to defects of expression, and to unbalanced statements of his thought. It had all the effect of the seclusion that some men inflict upon themselves, when HDT WHAT? INDEX

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from conceit or disappointment they restrict the compass of their life to islands in the great expanse, and become reduced at last, after nibbling every thing within the reach of their tether, to simple rumination, and incessant returns of the same cud to the tongue. This, and not listlessness, nor indolence, nor absolute incapacity for any professional pursuit, led him to the banks of Walden Pond, where his cottage, sheltering a self-reliant and homely life, seemed like something secreted by a quite natural and inevitable constitution. You might as well quarrel with the self-sufficiency of a perfect day of Nature, which makes no effort to conciliate, as with this primitive disposition of his. The critic need not feel bound to call it a vice of temper because it nourished faults. He should, on the contrary, accept it as he sees that it secured the rare and positive characteristics which make Thoreau’s books so full of new life, of charms unborrowed from the resources of society, of suggestions lent by the invisible beauty to a temperate and cleanly soul. A greater deference to his neighborhood would have impaired the peculiar genius which we ought to delight to recognize as fresh from a divine inspiration, filled with possibilities like an untutored America, as it hints at improvement in its very defects, and is fortunately guarded by its own disability. It was perfectly satisfied with its own ungraciousness, because that was essential to its private business. Another genius might need to touch human life at many points, to feel the wholesome shocks; to draw off the subtile nourishment which the great mass generates and comprises; to take in the reward for parting with some effluence: but this would have been fatal to Thoreau. It would have cured his faults and weakened his genius. He would have gained friends within the world, and lost his friends behind it. * * * He once asked the writer, with that deliberation from which there seemed as little escape as from the pressure of the atmosphere, “Have you ever yet in preaching been so fortunate as to say anything?” Tenderness for the future barrel, which was then a fine plump keg, betrayed us into declaring confidently that we had. “Then your preaching days are over. Can you bear to say it again? You can never open your mouth again for love or money.” * * * Toward the close of his life, he was visited by one of those dealers in ready-made clothing, who advertise to get any soul prepared at a moment’s notice for a sudden trip. Complete outfits, including “a change,” and patent fire-proof, are furnished at the very bedside, or place of embarkation, of the most shiftless spirits. “Henry, have you made your peace with God?” To which our slop-dealer received the somewhat noticeable reply, “I have never quarrelled with him.” We fancy the rapid HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and complete abdication of the cheap-clothing business in the presence of such forethought. A friend of the family was very anxious to know how he stood affected toward Christ, and he told her that a snow-storm was more to him than Christ. So he got rid of these cankers that came round to infest his soul’s blossoming time. Readers ought not to bring a lack of religion to the dealing with his answers. * * * On a summer morning about fourteen years ago I went with Mr. Emerson and was introduced to Thoreau. I was then connected with Divinity College at Cambridge, and my new acquaintance was interested to know what we were studying there at the time. “Well, the Scriptures.” “But which” he asked, not without a certain quiet humor playing about his serious blue eye. It was evident that, as Morgana in the story marked all the doors so that the one ceased to be a sign, he had marked Persian and Hindu and other ethnical Scriptures with the reverential sign usually found on the Hebrew writings alone. He had the best library of Oriental books in the country, and subsequently Mr. Cholmondeley, an English gentleman to whom he was much attached, sent him from England more than a score of important works of this character. His books show how closely and reverently he had studied them, and indeed are worthy of attention from lovers of Eastern Scriptures apart from their other values. Out of courtesy to my introducer, doubtless, he asked me to go with him on the following day to visit some of the pleasant places around the village (in which I was as yet a stranger), and I gladly accepted the offer. When I went to the house next morning, I found them all (Thoreau was then living in his father’s house) in a state of excitement by reason of the arrival of a fugitive negro from the South, who had come fainting to their door about daybreak and thrown himself on their mercy. Thoreau took me in to see the poor wretch, whom I found to be a man with whose face as that of a slave in the South I was familiar. The negro was much terrified at seeing me, supposing that I was one of his pursuers. Having quieted his fears by the assurance that I too, though in a different sense, was a refugee from the bondage he was escaping, and at the same time being able to attest the negro’s genuineness, I sat and watched the singularly tender and lowly devotion of the scholar to the slave. He must be fed, his swollen feet bathed, and he must think of nothing but rest. Again and again this coolest and calmest of men drew near to the trembling negro, and bade him feel at home, and have no fear that any power should again wrong him. He could not walk that day, but must mount guard over the fugitive, for slave-hunters were not extinct in those days; and so I went away after a while much impressed by many little traits that I had seen as they had appeared in this emergency, and not much disposed to cavil at their source, whether Bible or Bhaghavat. A day or two later, however, I enjoyed my first walk with Thoreau which was succeeded by many others. We started westward from the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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village, in which direction his favorite walks lay, for I then found out the way he had of connecting casual with universal things. He desired to order his morning walk after the movement of the planet. The sun is the grand western pioneer; he sets his gardens of Hesperides on the horizon every evening to lure the race; the race moves westward, as animals migrate by instinct; therefore we are safe in going by Goose Pond to Baker’s farm. Of every square acre of ground, he contended, the western side was the wildest, and therefore the fittest for the seeker to explore. Ex oriente lux, ex occidente frux. I now had leisure to observe carefully this man. He was short of stature, well built, and such a man as I have fancied Julius Caesar to have been. Every movement was full of courage and repose; the tones of his voice were those of Truth herself; and there was in his eye the pure bright blue of the New-England sky, as there was sunshine in his flaxen hair. He had a particularly strong aquiline Roman nose, which somehow reminded me of the prow of a ship. There was in his face and expression, with all its sincerity, a kind of intellectual furtiveness; no wild thing could escape him more than it could be harmed by him. The gray huntsman’s suit which he wore enhanced this expression. “He took the color of his vest From rabbit’s coat and grouse’s breast; For as the wild kinds lurk and hide, So walks the huntsman unespied.”

The cruellest weapons of attack, however, which this huntsman took with him were a spyglass for birds, a microscope for the game that would hide in smallness, and an old book in which to press plants. His powers of conversation were extraordinary. I remember being surprised and delighted at every step with revelations of laws and significant attributes in common things — as a relation between different kinds of grass, and the geological characters beneath them, the variety and grouping of pine needles, and the effect of these differences on the sounds they yield when struck by the wind, and the shades, so to speak, of taste represented by grasses and common herbs when applied to the tongue. The acuteness of his senses was marvellous: no hound could scent better, and he could hear the most faint and distant sounds without even laying his ear to the ground like an Indian. As we penetrated farther and farther into the woods he seemed to gain a certain transformation, and his face shone with a light that I had not seen in the village. He had a calendar of the plants and flowers of the neighborhood, and would sometimes go around a quarter of a mile to visit some floral friend, whom he had not seen for a year, who would appear for that day only. We were too early for the hibiscus, a rare flower in New-England which I desired to see. He pointed out the spot by the river side where alone it could be found, and said it would open about the following Monday and not stay long. I went on Tuesday evening and found myself a day too late — the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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petals were scattered on the ground.

“SHORT OF STATURE, WELL BUILT” — AND BORN ON JULY 12TH AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Gaius Iulius Cæsar HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: June 17, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.